


Blocking your own shot

by Arnica



Series: Blocking your own shot [1]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Explicit Sexual Content, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-25
Updated: 2011-12-31
Packaged: 2017-10-21 18:28:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 82,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/228267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arnica/pseuds/Arnica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eighteen days into his suspension Ianto tries to start putting things back together by tearing them all down first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Night 1; at the club

He's two and a half weeks into his suspension when Ianto wakes up from one of the many naps he's filled his days with since Lisa, madder than he has ever been in his life. Mad at himself for every false thing his life has become; the plain white walls of the mostly empty flat, the stacks of boxes containing their lives still packed away. Mad at Lisa, no _livid_ at Lisa, that _bitch_ , who gave in to the monster in her after fighting so hard for so long; for living if she was just going to die anyway. And Jack fucking Harkness for whom he feels a rage so strong he has no words. Jack who tossed his flat and his car, leaving the debris for Ianto to come home to on the worst night of his life. Jack who has bugged his entire home, cameras hardly hidden in his large three room flat on the fourth floor, following his every move in his bedroom, the little kitchenette, his fucking bathroom. Jack who reads his email and real mail and has his phone tapped. That bastard Jack Harkness who has him on a bloody curfew like he's a naughty child and not a grown man who just wanted to save a life. Just one life of just one person who loved him.

"Right." He wipes away tears he didn't mean to shed with rough quick gestures. "I'm done with this." The water takes forever to run hot up to his fourth floor bathroom, but once it does it runs long and hard, which is good, because Ianto isn't sure if he's taken a shower since that first numb one to get her blood off his body and he stinks. He scrubs, shampoos, shaves, and lotions. Trims his nails down and brushes his teeth until his gums hurt before stomping into his room, flinging the closet open even as he stabs blindly at raggedy excuse for a radio sitting on the bedside table. He misses his itunes but Jack has confiscated his laptop as company property and the snapped antenna on the radio only gets the college station. He's listening to Xpress and getting dressed in his fuck me jeans and tightest red tee shirt under black dress shirt combo that has never failed to get him laid. He puts on his lucky necklace (twice he has looked death in the eye and walked away, both times the twists of leather and silver have been pressed warm and tight against his throat and Ianto isn't one for superstition, but fucked if that doesn't *feel* lucky to him) and skips eyeliner but does use mascara that make his eyes look so large and dark the effect borders on over dramatic without the mind quite catching what it is giving that impression. He has hat boxes that he never touches for work because wearing hats is something he only does at the club with Lisa, but he tilts a black fedora with red pinstriping at an angle and clips his wallet to the chains on his belt.

"So!" He tilts his face up to the closest camera. "This is me informing you that Torchwood can go fuck itself. You can take your retcon, your curfews, and your mandatory monitoring and shove it up your arse sideway Jack!" He shoves two fingers right up to the lens, obscuring the view with the rude gesture that he doesn't care is childish before pointing the gesture sideways across his chest. "Deuces." Lisa would have loved it and he slams the door so hard it shakes at the thought.  
***

He deliberately cuts through as many blind spots as he can on his way to the club. The line is full of punks and hipsters and he skips it because the owner is a Riftugee and as far as he knows Ianto is still going to be the one doing his audit in six months. The bass is so loud it makes the spot on his arm where a hairline stress fracture healed slightly out of line ache and it pulls him onto the middle of the dance floor. ' Have fun, Jack, picking out just one more pale welsh boy in black in the middle of a dark strobe lit club.' He's running his eyes over the crowd as he rolls his hips and lets his feet go in intricate dance steps that he hasn't bothered practicing in almost a year. He wants someone completely out of his class, the kind of boy or girl that he's only ever had his hands on because he happens to be in bed with someone like Lisa or Jack, someone who a person that hot still wants to be.

Ianto happens to have been checking out a blonde so handsome he has to be a complete asshole when a flash of white and teal catches his eye. There's a woman in the middle of the floor wearing a white skirt so short it's really more of a frame for the brightly colored underwear than anything else, a cropped white fishnet shirt and sheer overshirt doing the same for the matching bra. Her hair is some dark shade, brown or black, her skin a pale goldish and she's perfect. The kind of perfect that would have Jack or Lisa green with envy if he pulled her without them. He watches her until she approaches the bar, squeezing up beside her.

"Lemmie buy you a drink, yeah?" Her face is heartshaped, eyes almost too large as she turns them his way, running them from his head to his feet even as she smiles with teeth too white and even.

"Tequila, double, straight up." Her voice is low and dark and so very American that he almost turns around but with a thick drawl that he recognizes from telly as very southern. The corners of her mouth curve further in a dare and he doubles the order, eyes locked on his as the bar tender lines them up next to eachother.

"After you." She pounds hers back neatly without even a shudder and applaudes when he does the same. "Another?"

"Let's party, darlin."

Five shots later she's pressed against the front of him, hips swaying and pressing to the pounding rhythm of the bass and he's hit drunk with a quickness that reminds him he hasn't eaten in a while.

"I should probally tell you that I have a self destructive attraction to the most fucked up man in the room at any given time." Her lips are frosted with something pale and sticky and catch the light when she gasps at his hands sliding up the backs of her thighs to cup her ass, pulling her against him. Part of him wants to be apalled because he does not treat women like this, hasn't even wanted to, but that was the old him. The Ianto who's life spiraled into the shitstorm he's in now.

"Well, that means you're coming back to mine then?" She licks her lips and wraps her arms around his neck.

"Oh _hell_ yeah." He lets her take the hat off his head and tilt it over her left eye. Her hair is a massive pile of curls spilling down her back. "Do I know your name?"

"Nope." He slides his hands up her body to grab her hand, pulling her behind him as he shoves a path clear towards the door. She stumbles on her far too thin heels and giggles as he spins and grabs her up, slinging her over his back so her legs lock tight around his waist. She squeezes her thighs teasingly around him,

"Oh thank _god_ , I thought I'd fuckin forgot it!"

They stumble out into the cool night air, and too many years of Torchwood has him scanning the street in both directions. The SUV is parked at the end of the street, lights off. He has both his hands locked behind himself, cupping her round ass as he steadies her.

"Do me a solid luv? See that black SUV at the end of the road? Give 'em the bird for me?" Her giggle is high and deffinately intoxicated as she twists in his grip and extends both arms, middle fingers raised. "Good girl." He squeezes with both hands and she purrs, gripping his hair.

"Who was I flipping off back there?"

"Just some people I know."

***

Her mouth is nibbling at his as he fumbles getting the key in the lock, one hand busy cupping her breast through the blue silk. She's scraping long nails through his hair and over his scalp, one leg wrapped up around his hip as she tries to press herself closer to him. The door opens with a click behind them and they stumble through, tripping over themselves and tumbling to the floor.

"Fuck." Ianto's head has bounced off the old hardwood floor and the woman who landed on him is scrambling to her knees over him, ripping her shirts off over her head. In the light of his flat her hair is a deep chocolate brown and her eyes are just as dark. She reaches behind her, thumbing her bra open and when she slides it off her breasts are bigger than he thought, round and weighty in his hands as she arches her back to press into his grasp. She shivers over him as he thumbs her nipples up stiff. He sits up, closing his mouth around one as he rips at his overshirt. He's left his music up too loud but Kai's customers won't complain and neither will the imaginary Ms. Gellen who lives in the other third floor flat. The girl is rocking against him to the rhythm of some danced up 'rock' tune, even as she drags those fantastic white, teal and gold patterned nails across his back in her effort to strip him out of the red tee shirt.

"Oh!" She tumbles backwards as he scrambles out from under her, legs akimbo in gold and clear heels that make them look a mile long, tilting her shoulders back so her breasts tilt up. She looks like a porn star, chewing on her lips as he strips out of his belt. The kind of bird Owen's never pulled, and spite has him grinning up at the camera mounted on the chimney as he cups her ankle and nibbles his way up towards her knee. He pauses at her knee, dragging his fingers up and down the inside of her thighs while he fumbles the fly of his jeans down and if that's not enough of a chance for who ever is watching the live feed to find something else to do then that's not his problem. She's making shallow gasping noises as he leaves his mark on the inside of her thigh, halfway between groin and thigh in exactally the same spot he bites all his lovers so they think of him with every step. " _More_!" She's hot, wet, and shaved clean when he slides his hand in her silk underwear. He lets her snarl her fingers in his hair, tugging his head firmly between her thighs and he's sure that he remembers having better technique than this sober, but she hardly seems to care, screeching and moaning like she's faking it, except she's far too drunk to put that much effort in. He wonders if they bothered putting audio bugs in and if so if the entire hub can hear her. Maybe she'll wake the petradon.

"Come 'ere." She lets him pull her up by the back of the neck, kissing her wet and sloppy as she reaches in his jeans and wraps her small hand almost around him. Ianto can feel her grin against his lips as she tangles her tongue with his and pumps her hand up and down his length with a surprisingly firm grip. She's nipping and licking her way down his chest, tugging at his jeans as he tries to kick his feet out of his sneakers. She gets them down as far as where he's kneeling on the stiff demin and stops fighting with his clothes to wrap her lips around the head of his cock, sucking hard. "Shit!"

She's not as good as Jack, but Ianto is pretty sure there's no one in the universe who gives head as good as Jack does. She's slurping and licking with enthuasiam, one hand between her own legs. Ianto leans back, weight on his arms and legs trapped and stares up at the camera staring back at him with its blinking red light. He can almost feel Jack watching him, livid at being disobeyed and aroused because Jack loves to watch. He winks up at the camera because he can't help himself. He's doing fine without Jack, without Lisa, without Torchwood and if retcon comes, he'll be doing even better.

"We gonna fuck or what?" She's picked his hat up from the floor and cocked it back on her head. Somewhere along the line her skirt and panties have been slithered out of and she's swaying lightly as she staggers to her feet clad only in those rediculously slutty heels and his hat. Laughter spills out of her as he scrambles out of his jeans.

"Oh yeah." He tumbles her onto the leather couch and doesn't bother admiring how long and lush she looks sprawled open on it, grabbing her by the knees and flipping her onto her front. Angling her hips Ianto shoves home, laughing as her nails scrabble against the black leather even when she shoves her hips back against him. "Good?"

"Yes!" Things are starting to feel hazy and distant as the booze continues to soak into his system. He rocks his hips to the rhythm of the music pounding out of his room, listening to her breathy attempt at laughter as he smacks the drum line out on her round up-turned bottom. "Shit, yes!"

He blacks out a little, if there is such a thing as a 'little' black out, and the next time he opens his eyes from a long blink she's covered in sweat, flat on her back and begging with her ankles caught up in his grip. Every muscle in her body is quivvering under him and his hips ache in a way that lets him know he's been fucking a lot longer than one or two blinks he doesn't remember.

"Please, please, please, yes, _please_ , fuck me please..." Her voice is thready and the top of his head is about to come off. Wrenching her legs open, he sinks his teeth lightly into the curve of her calf and thrusts as hard and as fast as he can, needing to come, to sleep it off, to just be done with it all. Under him the girl throws her head back and screechs like a scalded cat as she comes, squeezing him tight enough to bring him off as well. "Shit! Shit." She lets her legs flop onto the floor and over the back of the couch when he drops them and pitches forward, head pillowed on her soft breasts as they gasp and pant. "You fuck like a rockstar, Wales."

"And you take it like a pornstar, America." He pats the closest soft curve fondly. "Wanna sleep it off here?"

"I do if you fuck like that in the mornings." Her voice is starting to slur, alcohol and exhaustion thickening it. It's an effort, but he manages to shove off of her warm limp body and tug her to her feet after him.

"Left is the loo, right is the bedroom. I've got to lock up." Actually, isn't that embarassing, he needs to close the door first before he can lock anything. She snorts as she stands and promptly stumbles as she staggers off to the bathroom. By the time he's kicked the door closed and remembered how to set his electronic locks the bathroom door is open again, girl nowhere to be seen. He should wipe down the couch at least before it has a chance to stain, but he grabs his hat off the arm of the couch and slaps it on his head, tilting it in a nod towards the cameras before killing the lights.


	2. Day 1; Ianto's flat

  
He wakes up with the same knot of solid rage in his chest that he thought he had drank away. There's someone warm and soft draped over him, a long leg tangled between his and hair that smells like smoke and coconuts in his face.

"Hey." His voice is rough and his head is killing him. She groans and tips her head up out of the crook of his neck and he's faintly relived to see she's just as hot as he remembers her being.

"'Sup?" Her voice this morning is low and husky, a solid octave below the soaringly high sounds she makes when she's coming and that's a thought that has his already hard cock twitching against her. She smirks up at him and Ianto notices she hasn't even bothered to open her eyes. "Oh, I see." She's bonelessly limp as he rolls her onto her back and it's hard to be angry at the universe with a girl far to hot for him stretched nude and sleepy under his body. This is easier. _Lust_ is easier.

"I'm Ianto." It feels slightly absurd, introducing himself to someone when he's got his fingers between her legs and is rubbing himself languidly against her hip. "Ianto Jones."

"Cheyenne Morgan." She grins up at him, eyes half open. "Pleasure to meet you Ianto Jones." He swirls just the tip of a finger inside her and watches her shudder. " _Really_ , a pleasure." Her words are more of a throaty moan as he licks his way down her body under the duvet to settle between her thighs, feet sticking out the end and dangling off the bed. There's a bright red and purple bruise on the inside of her left thigh that he mouthes just to feel her shudder.

"Hand me down a couple of those pillows?" She lifts the thick blanket away from his head, cocking an eyebrow even as she shoves his pillows down at him.

"Planning to settle in for a while sugah?" Cheyenne's hips lift helpfully when he shoves the pillows under her, angling them up.

"Oh, the forseeable future I think." He flicks the tip of his tongue against her slit and she shudders around him. "Lie back and think of...bald eagles or whatever you think of in America." His alarm has gone off, switching on his cd and Ianto swings his dangling feet to the rhythm of Tool and concentrates on making her scream for him in that high breathy voice she used last night.

Ianto is four songs into the album and Cheyenne has started chanting his name over and over when his phone spits out Tosh's ringtone. He almost dives off the bed before remembering that he's suspended and Torchwood can go hang. He makes a big production of kicking his feet, the only part of him visable to the cameras, as he grips her by the hips and scoots further up into the bed. Cheyenne tosses the duvet half off them as she scrabbles to lock her fingers in his hair. Now it's Gwens' ringtone and Cheyenne is moaning his name around the three fingers she's got in her mouth. Owen's call is coming in almost before the sound of Gwen's voicemail has stopped playing and _that one_ Ianto is tempted to answer if only to pick up the phone and laugh. Instead he grabs the duvet and drags it up over them as he slides up Cheyenne's body yanking it up over their heads as he slips between her thighs and rocks against her.

"Yeah?" He's feeling breathless under the thick covers and moreso when she wraps her legs around his hips.

"Oh yeah." The air is heavy around them as he slides into her with one long slow thrust. "Ianto." He loves the way that she sounds like no one he's ever fucked before when she says his name, how easy it makes it not to think of anyone but her. Grabbing her hand in his he tangles their fingers, dragging their hands down between them to touch her. Everyone else has called and if Jack doesn't within the next five minutes than odds are good he's in the SUV, on his way, and Ianto doesn't doubt for a moment that Jack wouldn't hesitate in letting himself not just into Ianto's house, but his bedroom. Fucked if Jack Harkness is going to wreck anything else in his life.

Cheyenne is crying out underneath him ten minutes later and it almost drowns out the sound of a text message coming through. He can only think of four people who would text him before noon and three of them are watching him fuck a stranger which means Jack is on his way and either too angry or too horny to argue with him on the phone while driving. The thought hangs in his brain and he slams into her to the fantasy of Jack breaking into his bedroom and standing in the doorway while Ianto ignores him to fuck the girl who's sinking her teeth into his shoulder as she shakes and he comes with a snarl.

"Jesus freakin christ. You know how I said I had self destructive attraction to the most fucked up guy in the room?" She scrubbing her hands through her hair and Ianto's not sure when they tossed the covers down around their waists. "You must be a train wreck on legs."

"You have _no_ idea how right you are."

"Your phone's ringing again, it's got to be an emergancy. Do you need me to go?" It's Tosh's ring again and she's not bothering to let it go to voicemail, letting it ring twice, hanging up and calling again.

"Nah, but if you wanted a shower, now would probally be a good time for one." She rolls out of the bed and tosses his phone onto the mattress beside him.

"By the way, the cameras? Are you a freak, on tv, or under house arrest?" His ears burn red.

"House arrest."

"Without fail. The most fucked up guy in the room." She waves her fingers in a flirty little salute at the camera. "Hello camera person."

"Cheyenne says hello Tosh." He smirks up at the camera as he answers the mobile.

"I knew you'd pick up for Tosh you self entitled little tosser, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Well, Owen, I think I've been fucking like I invented it. And once Jack leaves, since I'm sure you called to tell me he's on his way, if Cheyenne isn't in a hurry I'll go back to it."

"You're pushing him Jonesy." Owen's voice is suddenly very tired. "No one's denying you had a _shit_ run of luck and Jack's trying to cut you some slack Ianto, but you're pushing him." There's a furious pounding on his door and Ianto takes his time sliding out from under the bedding and into a pair of black pajama pants crumpled on his floor.

"I have reached the point where I could not possiably care one iota _less_ about Jack's patiance, Torchwood, or quite frankly anything at all." The pounding at his door is causing it to shake visably. "So let me tell you just like I'd tell him to his face." Ianto flips the locks off and slings the door open as the man on the other side goes to hammer against it again, forcing Jack to yank his hand back before it connects with Ianto's face. "Fuck. Jack." He snaps the phone shut on Owen's cursing and steps backwards into the living room. "Be quick and discreet, she's still in the shower."

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Jack shoves past him, throwing his open mail onto the long bright red bar left by the previous tennants who built the thing and then couldn't get it down the stairs when they moved. It's hard to breathe around the knot of hate and rage and even regret in his chest when he looks at Jack without wanting to hurt him. "Who the hell is she?!"

"Apparently her name is Cheyenne Morgan. Glad you didn't ask me an hour ago, I was still just calling her America." There it is, that snap of bewildered hurt he's seen flickering in Jack's eyes since the night he killed Lisa. It makes the anger in him loosen just enough for him to draw his first good breath since he opened the door. He turns his back deliberately to Jack, showing off the curved red lines Cheyenne's nails drug across his shoulders. "Oh, Rhiannon wrote. How are my neice and nephew?"

"Why'd you break curfew?" Jack has his hands jammed in his coat pockets as he leans against the chimney, eyes cutting towards the open bedroom door and the violently teal underwear tossed over the back of the couch.

"Because I'm not a fucking _child_ Jack. Because if you seriously thought or even vaugely suspected I was a danger to _anything_ to do with the job you'd..." He cuts his eyes to the still shut bathroom door and the sound of water from the shower, lowering his voice to a hiss. "Because if you thought I was a fucking danger you would have put a bullet in my brain two and a half weeks ago. Which means that all of this, the curfew, the cameras, is personal and a waste of time because you can't punish me Jack. Nothing you could do, retcon, bullet, none of it can be remotely worse than living with it. She suffered for months for no good reason. Lisa _suffered_ and fought for months just so I could fail her when it counted. Her and Annie and doctor Tanazaki and Gwen. Do you think I forgot she almost got Gwen?!" The pipes in the bathroom clank as the water is cut off. "This is not the time to do this Jack."

"Then make her leave." Jack has his chin tipped up in that stuborn way of his. "This is a business matter."

"No, I think I  _just_  pointed out how this is actually a Jack getting his own back on Ianto thing since, again, we both know just what you'd do if this were really a 'business' matter."

"Sorry to interupt," Cheyenne is peering around the door water dripping off her hair and into the small hand towel she's holding between her body and the door. "But _you're_ out of towels and _I'm_ out of clothes." Ianto loves the fact that Jack has straightened his back and is shooting her a smile loaded with signifigantly less charm than he's seen Jack capable of in much more serious circumstances.

"Sorry, they're still folded in my room. Want me to grab you a shirt or something too?"

"I don't wanna be in the way or anything..."

"You won't be. Jack's not here for long." He's already heading towards the bedroom.

"I'm really not, just dropping off Ianto's mail right now. I'll have to stop by later when he's not...busy." He leaves the door open and hurries to his closet because part of him knows Jack has no reason to retcon Cheyenne and the rest of him is pretty sure Jack is a bastard and would not put it past him to do it out of spite. "So, known Ianto long?" Ianto digs into the drawers of the dresser shoved to the far back of the closet, yanking out a black undershirt and ripping the forest green shirt he hates off the last hanger.

"Since about...midnight? One-ish?" There's no shame in her voice as he tearing through the drawer full of workout gear and other things that do not get worn, pawing for a pair of shorts that for some reason have managed to move with him every time since he was sixteen regardless of the fact that he has long outgrown them. "Met him at a club somewhere. I'm on an adventure. I've decided to take a year of my life and live it like a book made to movie adventure. I've already made it to a diffrent country and had spectacular sex with a hot guy who is either a super spy gone bad or a criminal master mind gone good." Ianto freezes, fingers covulsing around the clothes in his too tight grip as Cheyenne giggles. "Oh, or on reality tv."

"Deffinately super spy with a bit of criminal mastermind thrown in." Ianto doesn't remember leaving his bedroom but he's between Cheyenne and Jack, gasping for air.

"All right, time for Jack to get the _fuck_ out of my house." Ianto clenches his fists to try and stop as much of the trembling as he can, but he can feel himself shaking and Jack is making that face that says he knows he put his foot in it and has no idea what to do now because messing up is what mortals do. "Fucking NOW, Jack!" Cheyenne has dissapeared behind the door again as he stalks across the floor. The older man has backed towards the door.

"You're pushing it Ianto."

"You're _deliberately_ offering too much information to a civilian just so you can retcon her. I've got plans now Jack; two weeks of a spectacular parabola of self destruction are waiting for me and if she's as fucked up as she sounds, I'm inviting Cheyenne along for the ride."

"This is pretty cozy pretty quick for a grieving man. Do I need to have her checked for cyber ports and transfer scars?" The edges of his vision are creeping in on him, grey going rapidly to black and by the time he's managed to take a full breath and blink his vision clear he's on the floor, Cheyenne's thigh is bare under his cheek as she competantly rolls him into rescue position.

"...far as first impressions go, I think you're a son of a bitch, a bully, and if you give me _one more_ of those little cut eyed looks from your fucking periphials like I'm touching your man, I'm not too fucking pretty to take these earrings out of my ears..."

"And what, sweetheart? I am, at minimum, two of you. I don't even have to stop you from hurting me, just hold my arm out and watch you swing away. Like watching a cartoon." Jack is white faced and his fingers, pressed against Ianto's throat at his pulse, are trembling. None of which seems to be effecting his ability to oogle the woman half dressed in Ianto's clothes and address her in a tone of voice that says he can have her anytime he wants her and it will be better because she doesn't like him. "One of those animes, maybe."

"Son, my husband was a Marine. I know tough and you are just a big dick and a bigger mouth in a raggedy-ass coat..." Gwen's ring comes out of his pocket and Jack and Cheyenne both freeze as he reaches into his pants and slips it free, flipping it open.

"Tell me you're on your way to remove him."

"We are." Gwen sounds faintly appauled and he wonders if she's watching the live feed from his home on one of the laptops. "Ianto, he shouldn't have said that..."

"I know. Look, is this invasion because of him, or work?"

"Well, it's work but..." He ignores her trailing voice and forces himself to sit up, shoving the mobile into Jack's chest.

"It's Gwen. They're on their way for you. For _work_." He emphasizes as Jack snarls down at him and opens his mouth to complain. "You can take it in the bathroom." The Captain stomps his way across the hardwood and slams the bathroom door even as Ianto looks over at the woman next to him. She's scraped her hair up and back with the pencil he keeps tucked in the sudoku book in the loo and has thrown on the green shirt, but it's buttoned all wrong, showing the fullest curve of her breast on one side and just barely covering her crotch with the tail of the other side. "Your husband?" Maybe he should start with the fact that neither she nor Jack have any rights fighting over his sprawled body, but the urge to beat the director of Torchwood through the floor is making it hard to take a deep breath and he's afraid to let it spill over.

"Not married anymore." She lifts her hands and wiggles them in the sunlight from the skylight.

"Divorced?"

"Widowed, eleven months ago. Made Iraq and home twice and got hit head on by a drunk driver." Her voice quivvers a bit and she swallows hard. "Sorry."

"Son of a bitch!" Jack comes storming through the room, tossing the phone on the couch. "Look, the survaliance stays and you know why, no matter how you want to twist the issue. Let me also _strongly_ suggest the two of you staying here for the next two hours. In fact I'm really going to have to insist you two stay inside for at least two hours." Ianto stares up into his eyes before nodding once.

"Fine."

"I'll be back later. Pleasure to meet you Cheyenne." She gapes at the door as it slams behind Jack before pinching the bridge of her nose and snickering.

"Is he serious about not leaving for two hours?"

"Yeah. I can make you breakfast though." She's not running and he's surprisingly unsurprised. "I do a great fry up. Bacon, sausage, eggs, hell I may have a tomato in the fridge."

"You know this is weird right? That the fact that I'm _seriously_ considering both drug lord and government spy as explanations for this, may infact push this beyond the relm of issues weird and into subscriptions weird?" Jack has reinforced how very little Ianto has to lose. Cheyenne leans forward into his touch as he cups her under her chin and tilts her face up to his.

"Didn't I hear you tell Jack you were trying to live an adventure? Hot girl in a forign country meets tall dark stranger who fucks like a rockstar and is quite possiably a drug lord and or criminal mastermind? You can't tell me you'll have a better adventure somewhere else."

"Well, " She catches her bottom lip between her teeth as she smirks. "You _are_ really good in bed..."

"Plus, let's not forgot the whole unspoken reason you picked me up; because you wanted to be around someone whos life is even more fucked up than yours."

"That's true. And you do seem to be a train wreck on legs." Ianto slides his hand around to cup the back of her neck, shuffling forward on his knees to hover his mouth just above hers.

"My entire world ended less than three weeks ago. I'm in the process of deliberately wrecking everything I have left just to see what happens." She kisses him back eagely as he presses his mouth to hers.

"Oh, I remember that bit. Don't listen to your therepist, it's both necessary and satisfying, wrecking your entire life and just starting over."

"Feel like hanging around for a while then? At least long enough for breakfast?"

"I could eat."

***

Cheyenne is perched on the red bar, swinging her feet and sipping at a cup of coffee as he scrambles eggs with cheese and ham in one pan and fries potatoes in bacon grease in another.

"Do you mind if I ask?" Ianto considers pretending he doesn't know what she's talking about before shrugging.

"I...my girlfriend Lisa died a couple weeks ago. We were working in London during the terrorist attacks and she was hurt. Badly." He's squeezing the handle of the cast iron pan in his hand tight enough that it's digging into his palm. "She was on life support but she shouldn't have been and I wouldn't let her go. I couldn't do it, because sometimes she'd wake up and know who she was, who I was and I didn't want to lose that. I lied. I stole and I lied and I cheated on her. With Jack. Who's my boss. And thought she was dead."

"Oh that is...that is a _spectacular_ parabola of disaster Ianto and I'm sorry. So sorry about Lisa." There's something he's supposed to be doing. Something important, something about the handle digging into his palm.

"You're the first person to say that to me. Everyone else has heard that I lied, that I had an affair with my boss, that I was fucking a dude and you're the only person who's said you're sorry the woman I love is dead and I don't even remember your last name."

"You know some shitty people Ianto Jones, who's last name I _do_ remember but only because it's so faux normal that it's deffinately a spy name." Cheyenne has slid off the counter and is standing next to him at the range top. For a moment he thinks she's going to hug him and fucking her is one thing, but Ianto thinks it would weird him out if she tried, but instead she gently but very insistantly pries his grip off of the handle to his cast iron skillet and takes the spatula from his other hand. "You're burning the eggs son. And yourself. Stick that under some cool water and keep it there until you start shaking." She scrapes the bottom of both pans with quick stiring motions and thumbs the water on with a quick flick of her wrist as she leans across him to the sink. He wants to argue that the water from his faucet is hardly cold enough for that kind of response but his brain seems to be lagging behind until it all catches up with him at once. The burn on his palm (minor, first degree), the cool shock of the water, and the sudden urge to sit down as his legs begin to quiver and he gasps for breath. "Head between your knees hotness. The bad news is that it'll be months before it stops hitting you like that. Good news is that it'll never be as bad again as it will these next few weeks." Ianto sits and leans backwards against the cupboards, forcing his head down on his knees and desperately glad that Cheyenne is looking at the stove and not him. "Food's done. I'm gonna go and actually get dressed this time."

Cheyenne is in the bathroom for almost ten minutes, long enough for him to swallow back the potential hysterics, wash his face and dish up two plates full of only slightly cooled food accompanied by two beers out of the fridge. She looks like a beers with breakfast kind of girl. When she sways out of the loo his old shorts are clinging off her hips and she's tied the shirt tight under her breasts so that he can see the long curve of her waist. Somehow she's straightened her makeup so that her eyeliner is tidy again and her lips are shiny but not glossy like they were last night.

"I've got beer or water, thought you looked like beer."

"You, sir, are not just a super spy, but a mind reader." He pops the top off on the edge of the battered counter top and passes it over to her, watching her throat work as she swallows in long pulls.

"Sorry, I had bar stools, but I broke them." She doesn't ask and he doesn't have to explain about the night he smashed them against the chimney stack screaming Lisa's name. "You can sit on the bar again, if you wanted to."

"I like sitting anywhere that puts my tits at eye level." She leans forward to set down her drink and he lets his eyes linger in the deep shadow of her cleavage. Seems rude not to after she's gone through all the trouble of bringing it to his attention. "It's Morgan by the way." The tips of his ears go red.

"Sorry. I didn't forget as much as I couldn't pull it out."

"No I really _do_ understand." She's picking around the burnt bits of egg while making it look like she never sees them. "It's honestly not a big deal darlin."

"So..." Ianto pokes at his fried potatoes for a moment before pushing his plate back and taking a long pull off his beer. "What do you do? In real life when you're not pulling hot Welsh super spies?"

"Oh, I'm a linguist." He can't help the arc of his brows. "Well, actually I'm technically still a linguistics student who occasionally does some free lance work with translations of obscure and dead languages that have been mistranslated into a secondary language."

"Wow. That sounds...you must be brilliant, what year are you?"

"I'm a year and a half into my dissertation." She's layering her eggs and bacon on her toast, swinging her feet. "I took some time off, after I lost James. For now I'm killing a few weeks taking in the sights of the UK before I start a translation job for a collector in the area. He says he has some peices that were translated, he thinks incorrectly, into German from an older language he can't identify."

"Your dissertation? So you're going for your..."

"My PhD in linguistics for syntactic theory with an emphasis on the pragmatics and morphology of dead languages."

"Jesus. That's impressive. So you're, I'm sorry, I have to ask because you don't *look* old enough to be working on the dissertation for a PhD."

"You darling boy. I'm twenty-nine this year, was married for ten years, am a polyglot and speak and write in ten languages but three of them are dead. Oh, and I'm a Taurus, but I think horoscopes are stupid."

"Wow." It's a list of accomplishments so impressive it's a bit intemidating. He's very glad he can't tell her much about himself. Almost twenty-four with a GCSE, one serious relationship that lasted two years before ending in blood and gunfire, and a through knowledge of filing away alien shit are almost as embarassing as they are depressing. "What ten languages?"

"English, Mandarin and Cantoneese, Urdu, Navajo, and Belarusian to name a few, although those are technically not dead so much as phased out and then revived." Cheyenne is looking at him expectantly, waiting for something about himself he's sure, and as far as Ianto is concerned she knows Lisa is dead and he's a wreck and that should be enough.

"Wow." The corner of his mouth twitches up. "That's an impressive list. So...you don't speak Welsh?" There's an almost feral light in her eyes as she leans forward and brushes her fingers down the back of his neck.

"Not yet. I'm hoping to pick up enough from native speakers to give me a good grasp of sentence structure and inflection, but the anglization of the area means most the speakers I've met are actually first generation. Not what I'm looking for." He's not sure why he wants to impress her so much, but he does, so Ianto wraps his hands around her waist, thumbs stroking up and down over her stomach.

"'m gram addysgedig 'm 'r brodor. Fi ve ar lafar Cymraeg 'm 'n gyfa buchedd." He's expecting a smile, a laugh maybe, but Cheyenne tosses the rest of her breakfast back on the plate and wraps her legs around his torso with a squeal.

"Oh, that's hot!"

"Telling you my gram was a monoglot and I've spoken Welsh since I was an infant is hot?" She doesn't hesitate in nodding, carding her long nails through his hair.

"The fact that you grew up in the language in it's proper form and didn't lose it as you got older? That's hot for a linguist. The idea that I may be able to bribe you to teach me as much as possiable in the next couple weeks with a long and inventive list of tawdry sexual favors? That skips hot and goes to panty dropper."

***

She's riding him in the patch of sunshine from the skylight since it's the only place in his apartment that's not directly covered by survelance, caught instead in the periphial view of two diffrent cameras. His knees are starting to feel a bit numb from digging into the hardwood floors but she's straddling him backwards and his hands are full of her as she whimpers and moans around him. Her hair is trailing down from where her head is thrown back against his shoulder to tickle his back.

Ianto twists his head, brushing her ear with his mouth as he tells her in Welsh how wet and hot she is, how much he likes it when she makes those slutty sounds at the top of her lungs. He's teetering on the edge of orgasm, fingers gripped tight into Cheyenne's hips as he tries to hold out long enough to bring her off one more time when the click of the doorknob catches his attention. Jack is frozen in the partially open doorway, white knuckled on the doorknob, gaze as dark and hungry as Ianto imagined. He tries to tear his eyes away as he comes and can't. Even without touching him, the man who killed his girlfriend can still make him come harder than anyone he's ever been with. Snapping his hips up smacks him into her cervix and Cheyenne makes a long high sound like a bird, gouging his hips with her sudden grip as she folds forward and comes. It's the sharp quick pain of her nails that manages to break his gaze with Jack and when he opens his eyes again the door is pulled almost closed. It's only because he knows Jack is on the other side that he can see his shadow at the edges of the door.

"Hey." His fingers are stiff as he lets go of her hips, she's probally going to be bruised, and strokes them lightly over the spiral of almost runic looking letters on the small of her back. "We should be getting dressed. Jack will," The idiot doesn't even let him finish, just raps briskly as a cop on the door he's holding shut. "Be here in a minute. For fucks' _sake_! Hold _on_ a minute, Jack!"

"Right, that's my cue to get going." Her words are a bit breathy as she shivers and stretches around him. She grabs up the discarded green shirt, slipping her arms through it as Jack pounds on the door a little louder.

"Ianto!"

"Sorry! Sorry, it's my fault, I'm almost dressed!" He smirks at the visable tremor in her knees as she gets to her feet. "Look, it's been great to meet you Ianto Jones who might be a super spy or a criminal mastermind."

"You too Cheyenne. Do you think I could see you again while you're in town?" Her hair is falling into her face as she peeks around the bathroom door.

"I'd like that. Grab my phone and put your number in. If I'm going to see you again, can I borrow these to get back to the hotel in?" Surprisingly Jack has yet to push his way in or knock again, simply looming outside Ianto's door as Ianto and Cheyenne call their farewells across the flat as they rush to put themselves in order.

"Sure." He's programing his number and address in her contacts list with one hand as he rights his pants with the other. As an after thought he programs in the number of his favorite cab company and calls them up, ordering a taxi. "I'm getting you a cab, where are you going?"

"The Royal." She steps out of the bathroom with his shirt tied low on her waist in the front so that it doesn't hang down lower than the shorts and her heels make a sharp little tattoo on the floor. "Thanks." Shoving her clothes in the oversized purse that's been sitting on his bookcase all morning, she accepts the cab money he hands her with a quick kiss. "I'll see you around. Sorry to keep you waiting Jack." He's propped against the doorframe as she pulls it open.

"There are worse things to be kept waiting for." He watches Jack step politely aside and reaches into the fridge, cracking open another beer as her heels clip down the first flight of stairs and Jack steps through the door, closing it behind him firmly.


	3. Evening 1; Ianto's flat

 

"Is it a waste of my breath to tell you I don't want you just letting yourself into my home?"

"Sit down. I'm going to talk to you and you can listen and have your say, or you can listen and shut up, but you're going to listen." Jack's staring at him with the same half feral eyes as when he hovered in the doorway, but his mouth is set firm and his voice flat.

"I thought so. Fine then, let's hear it." He sways over to the couch and flops down bonelessly, one leg propped up against the back of the couch, the other foot flat on the floor. It's nothing that will truly distract Jack, the Captain isn't that easily swayed, but Jack is a visual creature and Ianto knows that the image of him, rumpled and pale against the black leather, is sticking with him.

"The show was hot enough, but you didn't have to go through the trouble just for me."

"Don't flatter yourself. Under the skylight is the closest to a dead zone as I've got in here. Seems like the least I could do was not make her the star of some Torchwood amateur porn. Just say what you have to say, what do you _want_ Jack?"

"Cheyenne Morgan, twenty-nine, of Manasas VA. Married young for a full decade before she was widowed and currently seeking her PhD in linguistics through Cornell University..."

"In syntactic theory. Her husband was named James and she's also a Taurus. I know this already. She _told_ me over breakfast."

"Did she tell you she's flagged in both UNIT's system and ours?" Ianto thinks he's keeping a straight face, but he can't do anything about keeping how much he hates the other man out of his eyes.

"No. " He takes a long pull on his beer to keep his mouth occupied long enough to try and control himself.

"It's an orange flag. Monitor but don't interfere. Her public information says she speaks ten languages, which is true, but she reads and writes three more completely extinct ones. Languages so old no one's spoken them in hundreds, some times thousands of years. One of them isn't a human language. There are thirty people around the globe who can read it, only twelve of whom know it's an alien language, ten of _those_ twelve work for various government agencies and _all_ of them are under watch. We were supposed to be informed that she was in the country when she arrived, three days ago, and for how long. Don't suppose she told you why she's here?" Ianto can't stop the relieved slump to his shoulders. He's actually familiar with the protocols for what the academic community calls proto-Tai that Jack says comes from the 32nd century and a race that looks 'almost human but redder'.

"Yes, actually. Cheyenne is here right now to party, maybe pick up a little of the native for a couple of weeks before she starts a job. Private collector wants a translation verified. Thinks it was done incorrectly from the base language to German. Didn't you check my Torchwood email?"

"What?"

"For notice that one of the Proto-Tai readers would be crossing through Torchwood jurisdiction?" The older man stares blankly at him. "Give me patience. Jack, all that kind of information is sent to me as your office manager. The payroll confirmations, notices of persons of interest -human and non- moving through the area, low priority UNIT requests for information from our archives...are you telling me _no one_ has accessed my work email in two and a half weeks? You've had time to read letters from my sister, and my personal email, and watch me get _laid_ , but not time to do your real fucking job?! Some of those requests are time sensitive Jack and they all need to be replied to! Jesus fucking wept." Ianto rolls off the couch and slams his now empty beer down on the counter as he snatches up his phone, dialing with angry jabs of his fingers and speaking as soon as the line connects. "Tosh? Who's been doing payroll?" Jack is flushed, but with anger or embarrassment Ianto can't tell. This calls for another beer, in celebration for keeping Jack wrong footed every move they make today and in commiseration for the operational shit storm he's going to be responsible for cleaning up when he gets back.

"Jack has." She sounds exhausted, distracted, and slightly embarrassed.

"No, Jack has _not_ been doing it because payroll comes from Whitehall to _me_ for verification and adjustments before going to Jack to be signed, and apparently he hasn't looked at my email _once_. So who's been monitoring my Torchwood email account?" There's a flopping sound as behind him Jack drops roughly onto the couch and watches him drink his beer while Tosh's fingers fly so rapidly across her keyboard that Ianto can hear her nails clicking against the keys and she curses.

"Dammit! Ianto how do you have almost three thousand emails in less than three weeks?"

"I get around a hundred to a hundred and fifty a day Tosh. UNIT, Whitehall, SHIELD, the tourist board, Archie at Two, automated reminders...look, just leave anything low priority, that's white or green flagged, alone until I get back. Take a glance at any yellow flags because those tend to be information requests and forward them to whom ever needs them most, and go ahead and forward anything red or purple flagged to Jack immediately since they were either sent with a high importance notice, are time sensitive, or are definitive hits on my scanners for alien lifeforms or tech online using reliable keywords." Beer is not enough for this level of awkwardness; trying to explain what he actually _does_ all day between care and feeding of the team, and assorted alien life forms, and cleaning, and maintenance, and then taking care of Lisa... His brain comes to a screaming halt as he stumbles over the thought that the last one is off the list forever. Ianto doesn't bother finishing the bottle in front of him, leaving it half full on the bar and crossing the large empty front room to reach up on top of his bookcase for a bottle of Jaggermister.

"Did we _always_ get this many emails in and out?" She sounds frustrated.

"Yep. They used to go to Jack and Suzie who, according to my contacts, ignored everything they didn't feel like answering until screaming phone calls were required. Also, there should be emails from UNIT and SHIELD flagged with both green and purple as low priority and necessary information. Those should be the notices that linguist Cheyenne Morgan, documented Proto-Tai reader, is going to be in Torchwoods sphere of influence. Probably a few politely worded threats from both about _exactly_ what the ramifications will be should one of America's two Proto-Tai's meet a mysterious end or even more mysterious amnesia." He unscrews the cover and sets it on the shelf with the Dark Tower books, pulling straight from the green square bottle.

"Oh Hell. Ianto, would you have _any_ luck if it wasn't bad?" A man he hates who used to be his lover and killed his girl is slumped on his couch watching every move Ianto makes with an expression that reeks of exhaustion and hints at regret, the only place in his home not covered by cameras is the toilet, and he is drinking Jaggermeister from the bottle at, he flicks his eyes to the clock above the stove, 12:37 in the afternoon.

"Not recently. Look, Jack's still here for some fucking reason. Just, make sure my email gets opened at least once a day and anything that needs forwarding gets to the correct person? I'd ask Gwen but she's almost as hopeless as Jack and Owen."

"No, it's not a problem Ianto." Her voice is soft. "I can't wait for you to get back. Not because of this though! Just because, well, we miss you around here." He chokes on his drink and that's the only reason his eyes are watering.

"I've got to go, Tosh. And, well, you know you don't have to be a stranger, right?"

"I do now. Bye Ianto." The Blackberry feels heavy as he sets it on the shelf.

"That's settled then." He takes another drink, knowing he needs to slow down. Already the world is starting to take on the softened edges of a solid buzz. "Get off my couch and say whatever else needs to be said so you can go."

"You're a rude drunk Ianto Jones." Ianto is already falling back onto the cushions as Jack shifts, but only far enough to settle on the overstuffed arm. It's not worth the effort to argue the definition of 'off the couch' with Jack.

"I'm not drunk yet Jack. I just cannot stand the sight of you. Just _seeing_ you drives me towards such violent impulses that my only recourse is to drown them in liquor with the aim of becoming so pissed so quickly that I don't have time to act on them."

"You know what? I don't need this." Jack's voice isn't as flat as Ianto's sure Jack would like it to be. "You don't want me here, _fine_. I'll have the others come around from now on to pick up and drop off the mail, do the check ins and drop off your pay, and when you come back you _better_ have gotten over it, or be better at hiding it, because I am your boss and you're not coming in the Hub and upsetting my team by treating them this way."

"Nothing to worry about then Jack. It's not them," Ianto narrows his eyes as he lifts the bottle to his lips again, glaring over the edge of the green glass. "it's just you."

"I did my job!" Jack's voice is a roar as he pushes to his feet and kicks the sofa hard enough to scoot it, and Ianto, inches across the floor. "What did you want from me?!"

"I wanted better!" Ianto is off the couch in a lunge, the now half full bottle leaving his hand is a blur as it whips through the air to shatter against the chimney. "I wanted better from you for _her_! I wanted...you saved Gwen! You saved Gwen, Carys lived...I wanted...you didn't even _try_ Jack! You didn't even try to see if there was anything to be done. I've seen you put down _things_ that look like they crawled out of Lovecraft with more care and fucking _compassion_ than you showed Lisa!"

"If that's what you wanted for her you should have left her on the table with the rest of the half converted victims and Owen would have given her the same triple strength morphine and sedative mix he gave them!" The room reeks of black anise and it's making his guts twist.

"I don't know if you don't get it, or you don't care, but I'm done wasting my time trying to get you to understand. I'm not even going to waste my time asking you to leave." Jack pushes off the chimney stick running through the middle of the room, arms crossed over his chest.

"You don't have to. Curfew stays, surveillance stays, monitoring stays, _especially_ if Chyenne is going to be coming around, because if anything happens to her? If she sees so much as one weevil and flips out and breaks a nail, we could have a very big incident. Which gets bigger when it's discovered she was spending time with a Torchwood employee. Which multiplies exponentially when it is eventually uncovered that said employee was on suspension for insubordination officially and in reality for Treason against the crown and war crimes against humanity. Do you realize that's what you would be charged with if you were anyone _but_ Torchwood?" He didn't actually. He was so certain Lisa could be saved that he rarely thought about what she was half converted into and never about what that would mean if he failed. "So this stays by the book every second from now and you _will_ follow the rules. Do you understand me?" Ianto thinks he may be sick as he nods. "Say it. Do. You. Understand?"

"Yes, Sir." Jack slams the door so hard behind himself that the windows rattle and Ianto is sick in the sink because it's closer than the bathroom.  
***

He wakes up on the couch, face tight and sore from crying, because his cell is playing his text message song. He's fallen asleep, exhausted by drink and screaming-into-pillow hysterics, some time around three. It's pitch black in the flat now and his phone glows 8:31 pm. He's regretting not cleaning up the shattered remains of the Jagermeister because the anise smell is making him sick and the sticky thick glass is between his bare feet and the light switch. Ianto swings his feet onto the floor and snags the blackberry off the bookcase on his way into the bathroom.

 ** _::I caught a whiff from the third floor on the way out. hook me up w/ ur dollaman?::_**

He almost misses in the dark as he snickers to himself and dials the call back number as he washes his hands.

"You want me to introduce you to the dealer in the flat downstairs?" He doesn't wait for her to speak, starting the conversation as soon as he can hear her breath on the line.

"That is _totally_ what I want actually. A half ounce if he's got it, but at least a nick if you're gonna be joining me." He wonders if Jack will actually, physically, pop a vein.

"Yeah. Yeah I can do that. Do you wanna stop by the Tesco on your way over and pick up some more beers then and I'll just nip down to Kai's."

"Cool. Give me...an hour or so. Let's call it ten?" He ducks into the bedroom, throwing on an undershirt, grabbing his slippers and picking his way through the glass to the light.

"Ten is good." That gives him time to shower and if Jack is going to storm in to object, time to deal with him.

"Same kind of beer you had in your fridge? How many?"

"Yes and thirty-rack?" The broom is in the front of the tiny cupboard set into the wall next to the sink and he sweeps quickly with the phone sandwiched between bare shoulder and ear.

"Cool. Let me know how much it is so I can make up the difference between that and the beer?"

"It's no big. Kai will do me a solid on it." Mostly because Kai has gotten it in his head that Ianto is an arms dealer, which he would find ridiculous except Ianto knows that Kai saw Jack and Gwen hauling weapons and expensive equipment from his flat.

"All right. See you then." She's gone off the line and he dumps the broken glass in the trash before snatching his wallet off the bar and taking the stairs down two at a time. The third floor hallway isn't well lit and smells strongly of nag champa as he raps his knuckles out in an arrhythmic tattoo on the steel door.

"Kai! Hey, Kai mate, open the door Dollaman!" Kai is like a cartoon of a man, obscenely tall and rail thin in black corduroys and worn band tee shirts and 80's reference shirts. Today it's a black tee with the Thundercats that rides up when he moves his arms to show a flat hairy belly.

"Oi, what the fuck's a dollaman then?" Their fingers tangle, slide, and snap against each other in greeting before they bump shoulders.

"According to the American bird from this morning, it's your hookup man. Can you do a half of herb?"

"I can do _anything_ for you my brother. Sit down, play some Halo with me real quick. You want the chronic or commerch?" Ianto lifts his eyebrow even as he grabs the second controller. "Thought I'd ask, cause it isn't your usual order man. The sweetie with the smile told me by the way and I'm uh, I'm real sorry to hear about your loss man." Kai's sympathies are muttered as he presses a glass bong, chilly from ice, into Ianto's hand.

"Thanks." He hasn't smoked weed in years, Lisa disapproved and aliens don't tend to care if you're high or not when they feel like invading, but for two weeks still his life is his own again and he lights the bowl head and fills the small glass chamber until the smoke is rolling over in cold yellow tinted clouds. He almost can't take it all and when he does, Ianto can feel it hanging in the back of his throat promising that so much as one wrong breath will lead to a coughing fit.

"Yeah," They pass the bong back and forth as Ianto takes advantage of reflexes honed by too many fights for his real life to decimate Kai as they play capture the flag. "Shit! You're too damn good at these shooters Ianto. Here, I've got some Kush, hold on, I'll get you some of that then. It's on the house this one."

"Kai..."

"No, really man. And that girl from this morning? Was she..."

"She's...distracting. And stacked." Kai's grin is wide under his scruffy blonde beard. "Later man."

He's been longer than he meant to be downstairs and is only half way through his shower when there's a rap at the door and it opens.

"Jonesy!" It's Owen, head poked around the door. "Get out here so I can do this and go home. The game is on and I've got a take away getting cold in the car!"

"Five minutes Owen!" He's actually three minutes between washing the conditioner out of his hair and walking out into the living room in just his jeans and a towel over his head as he dries. "How can I help you Owen?"

"Jack wanted me to come get the weed from you and give you a threat of some sort but he's been an incredible pain in the arse all day, so I pretty much tuned him out after 'Ianto has weed'. Now sit on the couch really quickly so I can get back to my own life." Owen's looking at everything but him as he fishes out a stethoscope, a chart, and an old fashioned prescription pad. "This is going to be cold and I don't care." It _is_ cold as the medic warned when Owen slaps it against his chest and back, listening as he takes long deep breaths. "Now, since I know you're in a rush to get me out before your date gets here, you're going to listen to me for a few minutes. In fact, keep this in your mouth until I'm done." There's a thermometer under his tongue before Ianto can complain. "Now, Jack is pissing about and sulking like a fourteen year old girl. He says he's got better things to do than watch you drink yourself stupid and have hissy fits at him, but since he spends all day watching you do that on the security film he's lying. He wanted me to come flush your drugs as contraband, but..." He yanks the thermometer from Ianto's mouth and scrawls down a couple of indecipherable strokes on the paper. "Are you angry?"

"What kind of stupid question is that?" _Now_ Owen looks at him, dark eyed and serious.

"The kind asked by your doctor, idiot. Yes or no. Rage?"

"Yes."

"Nightmares?"

"Yes."

"Mood swings, anxiety, or trouble sleeping and please be advised that I can see you all day long since the girls have now refused to take turns Ianto-watching since you started bringing home birds and putting on porn shows."

"Yes, yes, and yes."

"Right. Then as your doctor I'm going to say you're having a bit of post traumatic stress and I'm writing you a prescription for the weed you have now and as much as you can get in you before you're due back to work. There." Owen begins slinging things back into the bag he brought up. "Now Jack's unhappy because I'm not listening to him, you're not as happy because all the fun of sticking it to Jack is gone, and I'm slightly happier because the two of you are not."

"Thank you?" Owen certainly has written out on his old fashioned pad 'Weed, as much as can be smoked before 8/23 for PTSD' and scrawled his signature across the bottom. "This is...pretty funny actually. I might have to frame my weed note."

"Yeah yeah, we both know this is just to cover bases in case any of this shit is ever audited..." The knock on the door catches them both by surprise. "Well, looks like I get to meet the girl. Go get a shirt on Jonesy. Can't have a bird that hot thinking I've been trying it on with a pouty little bitch like you."

"Owen, I'm _exactly_ the kind of guy you pull when you're drunk enough. You're crazy about 'pouty little bitches' like me. Let her in and introduce yourself." His hair is going to dry into curls, but damned if Ianto Jones is going to be the guy in the bathroom primping for the kind of booty call that begins with 'can you get a bag'.

"Hi, Jonesy's in the room, be right out."

"All right. Hi, I'm Cheyenne." He snatches a faded green lantern tee shirt out of the drawer with a wince, whipping it over his head.

"Doctor Owen Harper, at your service."

"Owen works with me." Cheyenne is putting a thirty rack of St. Pauli's girl on his bar as well as a bottle of patrone and a couple pints of grapefruit juice and tea. Faded jeans with tiny holes temptingly scattered up and down worn patches are clinging to her legs and the shirt she's wearing is short enough to show the shallow indent of her bellybutton and has a green 8bit mushroom on it that says '1up'. Ianto feels much better about his green lantern garb.

"Pleasure to meet you Doctor Harper." Her accent is just as amazingly thick as it was when she left this morning, so thick Ianto thought he might have imagined it that way. She's had her nails redone at some point today while Ianto was going through hell with Jack and they're glittery purple as she flips the cover off three beers. "I didn't know I was going to be interrupting some friends coming around Ianto. I didn't mean to intrude."

"Oh, we're not..." Owen protests as she passes Ianto one of the open drinks.

"Going to be much longer I don't think." Ianto cuts him off because it's bad enough she thinks he's possibly a criminal without knowing he doesn't have a friend in the world right now besides maybe her. She's already pressing the second open bottle into Owen's hand. "Well, gonna stay for one maybe?" Owen cuts his eyes towards the cameras before shrugging and flopping down onto the couch, taking a long swallow.

"Sure. Why not?"


	4. Night 2; Ianto's flat/ Cardiff docks

"You realize a doctor in jeans with blood on them and a gun in the land without weapons making house calls is skewing you pretty far into the criminal mastermind category, right?" Owen had stayed for one beer that was not nearly as awkward as it should have been, all things considered, but he's gone now and Ianto and Cheyenne are sprawled on his bed passing a joint back and forth between them. She's pillowed her head on his stomach and has her iPod out, stealing someone's wi-fi signal as they take turns flipping through you tube and watching kids eat hot peppers between band swapping.

"What if I said I have no idea what you're talking about?" The teen on the tiny screen is bright red and rolling on the floor, pawing at his mouth while his friends laugh so hard that they spill the milk they're trying to give him.

"I'd be slightly offended as I lived on a military base and know good-as-hell-well what a concealed weapon looks like. Doubly since it wasn't worn well and I could actually see the pistol grip twice." He double hits to stall. "I'm not asking you Ianto. I'm _telling you_ that you're starting to look more and more like a gun runner. I'm not going to get arrested hanging around here am I? Cause if I were just vacationing, fuck it, but I've got work in a few weeks."

"The police aren't going to arrest you because I'm not a gun runner." Her precisely arched eyebrow raises further as she plucks the joint from his fingers.

"You know what? From here on, I'm going to call you a coffee importer. You, Sonny Corinthos, and Jason Morgan." She's giggling and his fingers are stroking from her scalp outwards.

"A coffee importer?" Ianto is starting to think it's time to put away the weed, and maybe possibly the shockingly good mix of tequila, grapefruit juice, and cold black tea that they're sipping out of twisty straws.

"General Hospital. That's my soap opera when I'm home. Sonny runs the mob in Port Charles, Jason is his enforcer, and they smuggle something in and out, but the writers never tell you _what_ they smuggle. Just that their cover story is that they're coffee importers and you, son, make a damn good cup of coffee." He laughs so hard her head bounces off his stomach.

"And so my mad barista skills makes me a smuggler of some kind?" It's definitely time to put the weed away because he's obsessively stroking through her hair, tugging on the ends and drumming his fingertips against her scalp to the rhythm of Van Morrison.

"No, your mad barista skills, the very angry very hot Captain who's got cameras in your house, and the doctor who makes house calls with a glock make you a smuggler of some kind. Except you're not because we've agreed that you are officially a coffee importer. Remember?"

"Oh yeah. You're being a really good sport about this you know. The coffee importer nonsense, the cameras, the fact that Jack is probably looking at us and scowling right now." He plucks the short sticky roach from her fingers and stubs it out in the ashtray by the bed. Another filthy habit he's picked back up in the months since he moved back from London.

"I wouldn't be if this were my real life. Seriously, if this foolishness was invading my life back in Ithaca there'd be a riot. But since I've crashed your life and we're _really_ unlikely to ever see each other again once I start work, I can deal with the weirdness, and not knowing what's going on. Besides." She flips onto her stomach and nips his side where his shirt's ridden up. "Jack is hot and if it's not bothering you, he can watch all he wants. I'm easy that way." Seconds have barely past before the text alert goes off on his phone. The message on it is short and hilarious despite the fact that he'd rather kick the other mans teeth in than do him any favors. "What?"

"Jack says if you really feel that way he wants to request a cowboy hat and handcuffs. Doesn't say for which one of us though." He's definitely too high as he rolls his head back to stare up at the camera. "And don't bother texting me with anymore requests Jack, I'm still pissed at you."

"Bummer for the boss man, cause I look _damn_ good in a Stetson." Cheyenne slings a leg over his lap, straddling him. "Yippie-kai-yay."  
***

His phone chirps out the three sharp short beeps that let him know the call is coming in from the Torchwood comm system and not from anyone's personal phone. Ianto has the phone to his ear before he's completely awake.

"Jones."

"Let's have a hypothetical conversation since you're still suspended." Owen's voice is a panting whisper in the mouth piece and there's a sound very much like gunfire in the background that has Ianto squirming out from under Cheyenne's sleeping body. " If you were here and we were oh, let's say pinned down under fire by three things looking like huge fucking eels on legs by dock 27 and Jack was wounded, which way would you go? Keep pressure on that Gwen!"

"Fuck!" Ianto feels his stomach cramp in fear as he dashes back into his bedroom and snatches Cheyenne's iPod off the bedside table, waving her back as she sits up sleepily before bolting out onto the balcony away from the cameras as he navigates to the dummy website he set up as a front for the external back up Torchwood one server. "Keep cover Owen, it's going to take me a moment..." He's never tried hacking the T1 server with an iPod before and he's doing an anxious little dance as the satellite image of the dock area comes into view. "I've only got still images Owen, I'm working off a fucking iPod here. Are you on the docks themselves, or in the warehouse?"

"Warehouse."

"Of course you are. There are three exits from that building. Owen, do they look like Eels standing up with legs instead of tails, or like Eels sideways with stubby arms and tiny legs?"

"Tall Eels." He hates this teeny tiny screen and three quarters of the programs he needs won't run without bloody flash.

"Someone's going to have to make a run on the fire alarm. They're sound sensitive. There's one on each wall."

"Ianto says hit the fire alarm and run like hell." The line goes dead as Owen hisses instructions to one of the girls, Tosh most likely as Gwen seems to be putting pressure on a wound. Hers, his, Jacks? It's paralyzing, not knowing if Owen hung up or the connection was lost other ways.

"Fuck. _Fuck_!" He lashes out, kicking the flimsy railing on the balcony, phone gripped tightly in one hand, iPod in the other.

"Ianto?" Cheyenne is in the sliding glass doorway, hair tousled and huge, eyes half open as she muffles a yawn in the folds of the sheet she's wrapped around herself. "Are you alright?"

"They need me and I'm on bloody suspension. Look, I'm not going to be able to sleep until someone calls and checks back in. You can stay if you want or I could give you a lift back to the hotel?"

"If I do that you're going to worry yourself to death waiting up alone. You got a deck of cards?" The heel of her palm is grinding into her eyes as she yawns. "Let's go Wales, time to school you in...how's your poker?"

"Superb."

"Rummy it is then."

Six hands in and she's won a fiver, his coffee club card, drivers licence, and library card.

"Taking all the things from your wallet one at a time is getting less fun. Stop looking at your phone because if you really thought something truly awful was happening, I'm pretty sure I'd be out on my really good looking ass and you'd be off smuggling 'coffee'. That said, you've only got four pictures and a credit card left in there. What's it gonna be Ianto Jones, your money or your photos?" She's grinning at him, head propped up on her knees, blue sheet draped and puddled around her, and it occurs to Ianto that she's right. If he had really thought that the team was in serious danger he'd have been out the door and arming up in his bolt hole already, Jack be damned. Now it's just a matter of waiting to hear what the damage done was and winning back his coffee club card if nothing else.

"I think I'm going to start winning my things back actually."

"Good because I don't think the library will believe that I'm Ianto Jones."

They're halfway through a tenth game and Ianto has all his cards back in front of him when the phone begins belting out Gwen's ringtone.

"Gwen?!" Cheyenne uncurls herself in one smooth movement and pads silently back into his room, closing the door gently behind herself. From his spot on the floor under the skylight Ianto watches his bedroom light go on.

"We're all fine now pet." She sounds sore and exhausted. "Two got away, I'll be limping like a lame dog for a week or so and Jack took a shot above the hip." His heart stops for several long seconds before thudding erratically. "Owen says it's a clean through and through but it's a funny kind of bullet. He's on light duty for the next few days and I know I'm supposed to be doing your fetch and carry luv, but you've got Jack for a few days more until Owen clears him. Oh, and let's not mention these calls as we were," Her voice drops into a deep imitation of the Captains. "under _no circumstances_ less than death to call Ianto."

"I pissed him off properly, didn't I?" His voice sounds thin over the buzzing in his ears.

"He's been cheerier." Her voice is dry. "But he's sleeping now..." There's a brief sound of a scuffle.

"He's not sleeping." Jack's voice is husky with sleep and pain and it makes Ianto's mouth go dry when he tries to speak. "I _did_ tell them not to call you."

"Yeah, well I'm going to need the laptop back if you're all planning on doing that again. Ever tried getting proper real time imaging on a pink iPod?" Jack's snicker turns into a groan.

"Can't do it. I'll think of something though. _Not_ that you're going to need it since you're _still_ suspended from duty for another eleven days." There's a hitch at the end of each sentence.

"If you pull out Owen's stitching talking to me, he's going to be unbearable. Luckily I don't have to bear him at all, so proceed at your own risk. Also," The bedroom door clicks open and Cheyenne steps out, fully dressed with her thick hair pulled back into long pigtails. "Hold on."

"My cab should be here any minute now. I wouldn't have slept knowing you were here worrying, but now that you've got your call I'm exhausted. I'm going back to the Royal, sleep a bit. See you around Ianto." He's standing up to escort her to the door, but by the time he's gotten to his feet, Cheyenne is out the door.

"Damn."

"What?" Jack sounds barely curious. More like he's forcing the question out through gritted teeth.

"I think she thinks I really am a criminal. She just walked out at four thirty-seven in the morning without her bloody iPod. Said she was tired." The autopsy bay sounds very quiet in the background. Ianto supposes everyone else has fucked off to finish what needs to be finished for the night, leaving Jack alone and from the sounds of it, badly medicated with just Ianto on the phone.

"She might _be_ tired. You two were still at it when the rift alarms went off." The sky is lightening above him as Ianto lays back and stares up through the sky light.

"Well, I hope you enjoyed the show because I don't think you're getting another one." It's crazy how much that thought hurts. He doesn't even _know_ her, not really, but it was nice not to feel so alone. Just for a while.

"You're wrong. You are surprisingly hard to walk away from Ianto Jones." Jack's voice is quiet over the line and Ianto throws his arm over his face, blinking quickly in case anyone is looking at him.

"Jack, you're the only person to think that in twenty-four years and you're currently shot and barely medicated."

"Two of those statements are true, but the fact that Cheyenne keeps making it as far as the street and turning around all the way to the second floor says you're wrong. She'll be back up in less than ten minutes, even money." They're silent for a moment. "I hate this crappy alien codeine. It hardly takes the edge off and I can't shut up. If you hung up on me right now I'd just keep talking to myself."

"Why aren't you on morphine?"

"No one remembered to reorder and restock after, well." Vaguely Ianto remembers the mess that the autopsy bay had been as Owen had checked him over while he sat there numbly. Cupboards had been smashed, cabinets tipped onto the floor. "So we have none." Which means that no one has found either of his fall back rooms. Ianto sighs.

"On sublevel C, third right from the stairs is a room with a fifty year contamination tag. It's clean. It's um, it's one of my stores. There should be morphine in the top right hand drawer, along with Ketamine. Tell Owen the pink blood vials need to be disposed of safely though." His voice catches. "There's Heroin mixed into the Morphine in those."

"She _survived_ that?" He doesn't want to talk about this with Jack. He's still mad at him, even if he is still shaking with relief that they all survived.

"Yes. I don't want to talk about Lisa with you Jack."

"All right. The cab just left the front of your building by the way." There's a tentative knock at Ianto's door. "It's still empty."

Ianto scrambles to his feet, crossing the floor on shaking legs to open the door slowly. Cheyenne is leaning against the wall, hands in her pockets as she stares down at the toes of her sneakers.

"I'm sorry. I might be freaking out a _little_ over all of this." Her voice is soft. "Are your friends okay?"

"A little hurt." He's squeezing the casing of his phone as she scuffs her toes on the threadbare carpeting in the hall. "Do you want to come back in?"

"Yeah. Still on the phone with...Gwen, was it?"

"Jack. He's the one who was hurt." She hisses in sympathy through her teeth as she slides through the door.

"Tell him I hope he feels better." Ianto gestures over his shoulder with his thumb towards the camera on the chimney stack.

"He can hear you." He thumbs the speaker phone on. "Can't you Jack?"

"Sure I can." There's a forced cheer to his voice over the pain.

"Rest and feel better then."

"We'll even be boring so you don't hurt yourself watching us all night." Ianto smirks up over his shoulder. "Tell Owen where it is and get off that rubbish he's got you on because I'm going to want my mail in the next few days."

"Oh, I'll be over in the morning with it. I'm not _that_ bad. Go to bed so I can."

"Good night Jack."

"Good night Ianto." It's the most civilized interaction they've had in weeks, and it's only because he's exhausted and Jack is drugged. He closes and locks the door behind him and looks at the woman leaning against the wall, muffling a yawn against her shoulder.

"Sorry. I wasn't lying, I _am_ fucking exhausted, but then I felt like a wicked bitch for running out like that..."

"I'm not a smuggler." It tumbles out of him without forethought. "I don't traffic guns, or drugs, or people. None of us do. All right?"

"Okay." She gives him a little half smile when he reaches out and grabs her hand, tugging her further towards his room.

"Come on, we can catch a kip before Jack comes by." Ianto doesn't think about the fact that she's only the second person he's invited into his bed just to sleep. It feels too intimate to think about it that way. Instead he flops back on the bed in his boxers and watches Cheyenne slither and shimmy out of her clothes, perching on the edge of the bed in just a pair of black and pink underwear as she shakes her hair loose. The ends all curl tightly as they brush the curve of her back and the spiral tattoo. "Do you want a shirt or something?"

"Not really. I'm going to sleep all over you, you know. It hasn't been the intoxication, I really do sleep pretty much _on top_ of people in bed with me." Ianto stretches out his left arm, making room against his chest for her to curl into. Her skin is warm and soft as she squirms against him, tucking her face against his throat and tangling her legs with his. The lettering of her tattoo is raised under his fingertips as she curls her fingers around the edge of his hip. She neither laughs, nor asks what he's doing as he stretches his free arm above his head, towards the night table, and down towards the underside of the bed. "Can you reach all right?"

"Yeah." Warm breath and warmer lips tickle his collar bone as she rolls closer in to him.

"I didn't know I'd missed this so much." There it is, the echo of his heart break whispered on his skin. "Isn't it crazy, how lonely you can get without really knowing it?" Her voice is so deliberately calm that Ianto pretends he doesn't feel the hot wet drip of two tears on his skin.

***

The hard knot of rage that woke him yesterday morning is gone today, but there's an anxiousness in its place that has him reaching for the side of the headboard where it swings to the side, drawing out the long blade hidden in the wall even as he recognizes the sound that woke him as his front door being opened softly. Cheyenne doesn't stir as he slides out from under her and crosses the room in his boxers, machete bare in his hand as he steps out into the living room.

"Now how did I miss _that_ monster in the search?" Jack is leaning against his bar, face pale and a bit drawn, mail held loosely in his hand.

"I should have known it was you. Everyone is the neighborhood is too scared to break in here."

"Well, I'd assume that's why. Seriously, where'd you hide that thing? I'm starting to think you've got Hidey-holes all over Cardiff." He shrugs and lays the naked blade on the sea green built in shelving.

"I do. Well, I _did_. Hardly need them now." Jack's hair is limp and unwashed. "Wouldn't you have been ready to run if you were me?"

"I'm always ready for Volcano day." Ianto opens his mouth to comment on the bizarre phrasing and closes it immediately, reaching for his mail instead.

"You don't look like a man who's properly dosed up on morphine."

"Ah, that would be because I'm not. Never sent Owen down. They were all so exhausted I sent everyone home with orders not to come in today unless I call. The ri..." Ianto jerks his head towards the bedroom and Jack winces. "Well, it's supposed to be a very slow day at the office today. I'll just keep taking these pills that have me talking far too much for today and will be remarkably better tomorrow."

"Sit down Jack. Have some coffee while I get you something for that." Flipping on the coffee machine, Ianto crosses into the bathroom and steps up on the rounded rim of the tub, knocking aside a ceiling tile and reaching up into it and back past where the ceiling became the wall. Balanced on the edge of a support beam is a syringe. He almost fumbles it down into the wall before his fingers wrap around it. Jack is on the couch when he comes out of the bathroom with it and gives him a glare that's as much admiration as disgust.

"Did Gwen even bother running the scanner? Drug stashes, giant freakin swords..."

"Of course she did. But I only taught her to run it on explosive, ballistic, and _special_ tech modes." Jack nods at the emphasis on special.

"She was pretty through anyway, got most of it if that makes you feel any better." Ianto can feel Jack's eyes following his every move as he sticks the needle between his teeth and lifts the captains' arm, deftly undoing the cuff and rolling back the sleeve.

"No, not really. Why are you doing this?" It's one smoothly practiced movement, the way Ianto pulls the syringe from his teeth so that the cap comes off, clearing any air and sliding the needle into Jacks arm.

"I don't know. Because this is what I do? Better question, why are you letting me?" He's forgotten to grab a cotton ball and winces a bit as he grabs a napkin, folding it up small and pressing as he slides the needle free.

"Oh, that feels better already." Jack is slumped down deep into the couch. "If you're talking about what you said that night, it's because I don't think you will. Not with Cheyenne asleep in your bed. I've got to go..."

"You just took a full dose of opiates. You're not going anywhere, because with my luck you'd nod off and plow through a class of kindergartners and that would be my fault too. Just shut up for a moment. Just one." The coffeemaker is sending rich dark scents through the air as he crosses the room, pulling two mugs down.

"Ooh, I'm actually getting coffee? I thought that was just an excuse to make me sit down. Like telling your dog you're going to the park when you're going to the vet." Ianto smirks despite himself.

"Should I take it as read that it's going to be a while longer before the previous medication is out of your system?" It's a beautiful day outside his window. The sky is ultra blue in the distance he can see a hint of the bay between the other buildings and the sun is already warming his bare chest through the window as he measures out sugar into the cups.

"Should I take it that you intend to use this momentary weakness to your advantage?" There's an undercurrent of worry in Jack's voice.

"Of course I do." He turns back to the couch with a mug in each hand and a wide cold grin on his face. "Coffee, sir?"

"You'd make a hell of an interrogator Ianto Jones. Openly offering me something I miss with coffee, implicitly offering you by not dressing, the smile that admits you'd rather be breaking my kneecaps and you don't care that I know...want to take over the other spot in questioning when you come back?"

"Take your coffee, Jack." Ianto slips it into the older mans hand and sits next to him, bare shoulder pressed against limp, wrinkled cotton as he drops his voice. "Take your coffee, keep your voice down, and tell me the truth. Did she ever have _any_ chance at all?" It's not what Jack thought he was going to ask, by the expression on his face. It's not what Ianto thought he was going to ask either, but now that it's out of his mouth, he realizes it's the only question that's been on his mind. "Did I...did I just take too long? Did I damage some _thing_ prying her off the table that caused this? Was there ever a chance at all?"

"No." Jack's voice is as soft as his own. "As soon as the first pieces of cyber circuitry were implanted in her brain there wasn't a chance left for anyone. All the programming was waiting, deep inside her, staying mostly dormant as long as she was helpless, ready to overwrite her the moment it could function."

"All right." There's a hollowness to his voice, that echoing quality he vaguely remembers hearing from himself during the debriefing that followed that night. The one with Tosh that seemed like it would never end. "Okay. I..." He swallows hard. "Okay." The coffee he's staring into wavers and doubles in his vision as his eyes threaten to well over. The hand that cups the back of his neck is so unexpected that he almost flinches away from the warm circles being rubbed at the base of his skull by a thumb.

"Ianto, I..."

"I need a shower." Pulling away from the hand on the nape of his neck shouldn't be this hard. "And I expect you to be _here_ , on this couch, when I get out. If I can't get someone to come get you and the SUV, I'll drive you back myself." He places the untouched coffee on the floor next to the couch as he stands and crosses to the built in shelving, reaching for the top and pulling down a throw blanket and tossing it towards the couch with one hand, palming Cheyenne's iPod with the other. "If you stretch out, take your boots off first."

He makes it into the shower before the tears start, but just barely. He can't hear the music pumping out of the iPod's built in speakers once he's under the spray of water, but it's not for him anyway. Cheyenne likes her music loud and aggressive and the singer screaming over pounding drums and snarling guitars should cover whatever sounds the water doesn't.

***

The living room is silent when he opens the bathroom door. For a moment he thinks Jack has gone and Cheyenne is sleeping, but there's a large lump under the tattered throw on the couch and the sliding glass door to his tiny balcony is partially open.

"Hey." Her voice is soft as Cheyenne sticks her head back into the flat. "You weren't kidding about the mad barista skills. This coffee is the best ever." She takes a long sip as he joins her on the porch. "Now, am I going insane, or is that your boss Jack napping away on your sofa?"

"He's there. He thought he was tougher than an injury and four flights of stairs. He was wrong." A sea breeze ruffles her hair, blowing it into her face.

"Okay, I was trying not to ask cause it's not really my business, but what's the deal? You said you were having an affair with Jack before Lisa died, which explains why you were so nervous last night that you couldn't sleep until after you talked to him..."

"It wasn't like that." He's too emotionally exhausted to have this conversation. He's going to say something he shouldn't.

"It most certainly was like that. The girl called, you relaxed a bit. I come back from getting dressed you're on the phone with Jack and you were completely wrung out, but in a kinda good way. All of this makes perfect sense. Obviously you had to feel _something_ for him to sleep with him. The part where I keep getting turned around, the bit that _really_ keeps fucking my brain up, is how damn mad you are at him. Logic says if someone is going to be as pissed off as you've been, it should be Jack. I mean, you did say you were cheating on her which means you were cheating on him too. Hell, that's not so weird either, I get mad at people for all sorts of stupid shit instead of being mad at myself. The _weird_ thing is that he keeps taking it and coming back for more. Like he deserves it. Even right now, you're pissed off that he's here but you've bedded him down. So, what's the deal with you and him?"

"It's complicated. Very, very, complicated and very tangled up in my job." Cheyenne nods, resting her folded arms on the railing as she looks down past the scraggly excuse for a courtyard on the side of the building towards the street.

"Want to know a secret that's not nearly as patronizing as it's going to sound?" He nods and leans on the railing with her, soaking up the hot morning sun on his damp bare back even as he adjusts his towel to keep from flashing the passersby. "Things that are emotionally complicated at your age just get more so the older you get. The upside is, the things you've figured out how to simplify...tend to stay pretty fucking simple. Just sayin." Her lips are silky as they brush over a twisting scar that runs from his scapula to his spine. "I think I'm gonna go wander around until I find an ice cream place. Wanna come with me so I don't get lost?" There's a small thump from behind them and when Ianto looks over his shoulder, Jack's foot has slid off the couch.

"Yeah, let me get dressed first."


	5. Day 3; the bakery/the SUV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look for bonus walk on by characters for the BBC's Being Human

The summer sun is hot on the back of his neck and his bare arms as he leads Cheyenne in a meandering wander through alleys and side streets. She's tucked her small hands into the crook of his elbow as she asks surprisingly interesting questions about the areas history, both generally and involving himself. What he doesn't know as a hometown boy, he's learned in six months pretending to work a tourist information center.

"So, they're the oldest bakery on this side of town, but _not_ the oldest bakery in Cardiff, and the owner used to give you an extra fruit pie when you were little? What kind?"

"Cherry." They've paused in front of the display window, the name of the bakery stenciled across the glass in faded and chipped gilt lettering. "And not that shite canned cherry slop. Proper cherry turn-overs made in _that_ kitchen from real fruit."

"Oooh, I love a good cherry turnover. Almost as good as apple. Come on, we're going in." She's literally dragging at his arm as she spins towards the door.

"I thought you wanted ice cream?" The smile she gives him is beautiful in the sunlight that's picking out red and golden highlights in her hair.

"I'm going to have both. I put a ridiculous amount of effort into staying in shape _precisely_ so that when the urge strikes me, I can have ice cream and beer and turnovers and poutine."

"Poutine?"

"French fries with curd cheese and brown gravy. Best thing you've never eaten. Now come on, I want a cherry turnover so good I'll be thinking about it when I go." The bell over the door makes a tinny chime as they enter the shop. It smells and feels exactally like Ianto remembers. The linoleum on the floor is still age yellow and tipping up in the corners and the walls haven't seen a fresh coat since the floor was installed. There are nicotine stains on the ceiling, a coke cooler that has to be twice his age and pictures drawn by tiny hands with crayons taped along the display counters.

"Oh my gosh. I grew up down the street from a bakery just like this! They even put up the pictures the kids drew, just on the walls instead. Mine are still there twenty years later."

"Well if that's little Ianto-two-cherries-and-a-cherry-coke-Jones, I've still got one of his taped up too." The man coming around the counter has just the last wisps of white hair clinging to a head as round and wrinkled as an apple doll.

"Mr. Sands!" Ianto is beaming as he takes the old man by the hand. "I thought you and the Missus would have retired by now."

"And then who would make sure that the coffee got made properly and tinned fruit was kept far away from my kitchen? Well, sit down then. I know what you want young sir, but what can I get for this stunning young lady on your arm?"

"A cherry turnover and..." He watches Cheyenne rest her sparkling purple nails against her lip as she scans the cases. "Whatever you think is the best thing you've made today."`

"Ooh, she's clever. Three cherries, two coffees, and a surprise on their way. Go on then, sit down." They sit at a battered red Formica table near the plate glass window, watching people pass by.

"I need to call Owen soon, have him stop by the house and pick up Jack and the SUV."

"Would that be the same big black beast you had me salute the night I met you?"

"It would, yes." He gives her a half smile as two coffees and two plates are set in front of them. "Wait a mo, that's a giant creme puff swan! I want a giant creme puff swan!" The old man chuckles as Cheyenne smirks and breaks off a piece, running it through the thick hot fudge sauce before popping it into her mouth..

"Maybe I'll share it with you."  
***

Snack time turns into an hour of lazy nibbling and refills before Ianto glances at the clock.

"I should really get back. Shuffle Jack off my couch and back to where he belongs." He glances at her second plate where her cherry turnover sits untouched as she licks the tines of her fork clean of the last traces of his second dessert.

"Well I'm stuffed. Think Jack would like mine?" She shrugs under his suddenly sharp gaze. "He's hurt Ianto, and while I'm on your side by reason of a few fantastic nights, your beef is not my beef. All right?" She takes the Styrofoam box that appears by her hand, passing over a credit card before Ianto can reach his wallet.

"Fine, but if he's an ars..." Mr. Sands clears his throat softly from the register and Ianto rests his forehead against his palm. "If he's the same as he's been, this becomes mine."

"I can live with that." He watches her long fingers tuck the pastry neatly into the box.

"So...would you like to have dinner at mine tonight? Proper food mind, not just take away." Her lips curve up into a soft smile.

"I think I'd like that." He's busing their table despite the older man's protest as they walk towards the counter.

"Good. Seven?"

"Seven sounds fantastic." She slips her card back into a tiny wallet and then into her pocket. "It was a pleasure to meet you Mr. Sands. Everything was delicious."

"Call me George." He pats her hand and then Ianto's shoulder. "I'll tell Nina you were by. She'll expect to see you soon." The sun has gotten brighter as they sat inside and the way Cheyenne squints wrinkles her nose.

"All right, what's the quickest way to the big water tower? That's the only landmark I know to get back to the hotel." Ianto smiles to cover the wince he can't show. The very last thing he needs is cctv footage of him pointing her towards the quay. Jack will have retcon in her next room service call before he can say 'it's a landmark'.

"It's closer to just go to the Royal from here. I'll show you the back way." She smiles and tucks her hand in the crook of the arm he extends to her.

"What about Jack?" She waves the carry-out bag with the turn over at him playfully.

"Jack's a big boy. He'll stay put and be fine for another twenty minutes or so."  
***

He kisses her sweetly in the sunlight in front of the foyer of the Royal and watches her walk through the doors before turning on his heels and running full out towards home. Jack is _not_ a big boy who will stay put. Jack is a fucking idiot who has probably woken up by now, is most likely looking for where Ianto hid his keys, and will be behind the wheel of the SUV as soon as he puts his hands on them, medicated or not. He's absurdly grateful to various alien species for his long distance endurance as he cuts across side streets, skids through changing traffic lights, and even scales a chain link fence to cut a block and a half off his trip. It's nice to feel the breeze on bare arms and shins. To be just another anonymous kid in long shorts and a vest booking it through the street, far more unforgettable than a man in a suit doing the same. He may have to start keeping a pair of sneakers in the boot for chases because it's been so long since he ran in anything other than dress shoes that he had honestly forgotten just why sneakers are the preferred footwear for running. Skidding around the corner to his street he jumps the low stone wall around the neighbors garden and then the small cast iron fence dividing his parking lot from their backyard in time to snatch the keys out of Jack's hand from behind him.

"You are such a fucking idiot. I _knew_ you'd try to drive." He's panting, leaning against the side of the truck as Jack frowns down at him.

"If you weren't smoking, you wouldn't be winded."

"The fuck says I. I ran all the way from the Royal you twat. Take this and get in." Jack takes the proffered bag with a small confused smile.

"What's this?"

"A cherry turnover from Sands Bakery." There's a familiar light in Jack's eyes, the same spark of genuinely surprised pleasure that showed every time Ianto would set a small bakery bag on his desk with his morning coffee. The look is too friendly, too much like nothing has happened. "Chy picked it up for you as a get well gift."

"Oh." The smile fades around the edges and it shouldn't twist his stomach to see that. "Well, tell her thank you for me."

"Let's just get you back to the hub before something goes wrong." Ianto slings himself into the drivers seat and keeps his eyes forward as Jack slides gingerly into the passenger side, wincing a bit and pressing the hand clutching the pastry bag just above his belt. "Oh god damn it, did you pop a stitch cause Owen will have your head and then he'll come over here..."

"And spend half an hour nursing a beer and telling jokes with you and your new girlfriend?" There's a timbre to Jack's wry tone as he buckles himself in that gets Ianto's back up.

"She's not my girlfriend Jack. She's a perfectly nice stranger who I happen to be fucking. At this point, the fact that I actually like who she is is just a bonus." He whips the SUV into reverse without his mirrors and listens to Jack hiss as he whips the SUV out backwards through the narrow alley and into the road. "I had a clear line of sight the whole time Jack. You're not the only one who can drive you know." He double taps a button on the steering wheel. "Call;Owen, business phone." The phone rings just once before Owen picks up.

"Jack, get out of the bloody truck and go back inside until I can check out those stitches. Give me half an hour..."

"Too late, he's already taken the SUV, been to my house, and maybe popped a stitch."

"And you're driving him back to the hub?" The medic snickers. "Kicking and screaming or knocked out cold?"

"Comfortably medicated and listening to you right now Owen." Jack slumps back and crosses his arms over his stomach. "Well, I _was_ medicated. It's wearing off." Ianto looks over at Jack as they stop for a red light.

"It shouldn't be, I gave you a full dose of morphine and you can't have slept for more than eighty or ninety minutes."

"Do I start with the fact that you shouldn't have morphine in your flat, that you shouldn't be administering it, or the nap?" Over the speakers they can hear Owen slamming doors and water running.

"How about we leave it at; I had it, I'm a fucking expert at administering opiates these days, and piss off." There's a clog in traffic on the main road as an officer waves cars one at a time around a two freshly crumpled vehicles in the intersection. "Oh, and take a different way in today. There's been an accident."

"I'll be there in ten. Can you make sure he doesn't pull out anymore of my hard work?"

"Can't. I can't even get into the garage to park, Owen. I'm pulling the truck as far as the side of the street and heading home."

"Look, just pull the SUV to the curb and wait with him until I get there to park it. Ten minutes." The doctor has cut the connection before Ianto can open his mouth again. Ianto growls under his breath and thumps his forehead off the steering wheel as the cop at the intersection waves cars through one at a time.

"I don't need a babysitter you know. Your first plan was fine." Jack says softly from the seat next to him. The paper bag in his hands crinkles as he fidgets with it.

"It's fine Jack." Ahead of them cars keep creeping forward one at a time, the traffic jam grating on his already frayed nerves. He tries to ignore the man in the passenger seat, turning over various combinations of the dishes he can actually make in his head but the rhythmic crumpling of the bakery bag is making the muscle in the corner or his eye want to start ticking. "How about instead of playing with the bag, you open it and just eat the pastry?"

"Do you even want to come back to Torchwood?" His foot slips onto the gas in shock and only Jack's alarmed shout shakes him enough to slam onto the brakes inches away from the rear bumper of the car in front of them. "Jesus! Ianto, what the _hell_?!"

"What do you mean what the hell? I don't want the fucking retcon Jack, we talked about this!" There's a cold pit in his stomach. Jack has decided that he's too much trouble. He over played his hand this morning, coming out armed and producing drugs he never should have had. He's a threat again and Jack Harkness has no sympathy for threats to his small world. He wonders how far he can make it before they find him.

"I know." Jack's voice is soft and even, like he's gentling a spooked animal. "And I didn't ask if you wanted retcon. I asked if you wanted to come back." Some absurd part of his brain has finally put together the menu for tonight, even as he grips the wheel with white knuckled hands and eases them forward in traffic.

"It's the same thing. No Torchwood equals Retcon. That's the first rule of Torchwood, even above 'if it's alien it's ours', remember?" The cop in the intersection gives them the stink eye as he sees the lettering across the front panel and lets two more cars go in the other direction.

"Says who? _We_ are Torchwood. Me, Gwen, Owen, Tosh, Archie at two. You, if you stay. The rules aren't the same. So I'm telling you retcon is off the table. Now, do you want to come back to Torchwood? Because I'm your boss Ianto. Me, and that isn't going to change any time soon." There's a sardonic twist to his words. "Really. But this mess between us is getting worse instead of better and I need you to be able to work with me. I need you to trust me with a gun at your back when everything is going to hell. I need the same from you and right now? I don't know if that's possible."

"I can't..." His throat is tight and he can't seem to catch a full breath. Behind them someone lays on the horn and Ianto jerks through the intersection, glowering at the smirking copper as he rolls by. "I can't leave Jack. Torchwood's the only thing I know. It's all I have left."

"You could give regular life a shot. You don't seem to be doing so badly at it." Ianto can't keep the snort of derision back.

"I'm a fucking wreck Jack. I fuck all night because I can't sleep anyway. I drink all day, I'm smoking pot for the first time in four years and I'm back up to a pack a day when I quit a year ago." Jerking the car off the main street Ianto cuts up through side streets and a couple one ways. "That's not me. I mean, does it sound like me?"

"The fucking all night does." The words fall from Jack's lips offhandedly and Ianto can see the moment brain catches up to mouth as the older man freezes, eyes comically wide as he puts his closed fist over his lips.

"I can't believe you just said that to me." The corner of Ianto's mouth is twitching up against his will. He manages to keep his face straight until he catches sight of the reddening tips of the Captain's ears. The snicker slides out of him as he whips the black vehicle into a metered space across from the tourist office, turning into a full roaring laugh as he cuts the engine and the flush creeps across Jack's cheek bones. "Wait, I lied, of _course_ I believe you said that to me!" Jack grins sheepishly at him.

"You did ask." The bag rustles loudly as Jack finally reaches in, pulling out a roughly treated turnover, the glazed top layer with it's crunchy sugar flaking off as it leaks cherry filling into Jack's hand. "Aww, it's squished." Still smiling lips wrap around the webbing between forefinger and thumb as Jack licks the spilled fruit preserves away, eyes fluttered shut in enjoyment, and suddenly Ianto's cock turns traitor as it remembers exactly what that tongue feels like and starts to take interest.

"Sorry, must have happened when I jumped the fence." He rips his eyes away from Jack's mouth and sling the door open in relief as Owen's car comes whipping around the corner and disappears into the garage. "That's Owen." Jack opens his eyes and takes his hand out of his mouth unself-consciously as if there's nothing inappropriate about licking his hands clean next to someone he's licked head to toe. Ianto keeps his face tuned away, watching Jack in the side mirror as he slides out of the car. Slightly damp fingers with a faint trace of stickiness wrap around his wrist, halting him with one foot on the asphalt.

"Are you sure you want to come back?" He doesn't pull away from the overly warm grip, turning to face his captor and ruthlessly shoving down the pulse pounding mix of anger, fear, and lust pounding through his brain as he meets Jack's stark blue gaze.

"I have to. Torchwood's the only thing I know how to be anymore. It's all I am now."

"We'll have to get past this." It's still just this _thing_ that happened as far as Jack is concerned. A thing to get over; not bodies, dreams, and a future lying dead between them. Just a thing to be warned about and forgotten.

"I'll figure something out." He watches the other man catch the chill in his voice and sink back into his own seat taking his sticky fingers with him as he shakes his head.

"Thanks for the ride." Ianto spins away from the door and jabs his finger at Owen as he strolls up to the SUV, one hand in his pockets, the other carrying a large Starbucks cup.

"That was eighteen minutes and you stopped to get a coffee you utter shite."

"Well _someone_ isn't here to make it at the moment and I need my fix when I need my fix. Go on then, fuck off since you're in such a hurry to get home and do...what?" Owen takes a noisy slurp of his coffee as Ianto slaps the keys down into his palm.

"Don't start with me Owen. I'm already doing far too much for someone on suspension at half pay. Oh, and check the tagged room of sublevel C and get rid of the vials with the pink tops. Jack will explain." For spite he waits until Owen sets his coffee down to do a quick examination of Jack and grabs the jumbo paper cup, walking off across the street while the medic has his back turned.

***

Ianto juggles the shopping bags, trying to prop them up on one knee as he tries to unlock the door. He's shifted the bags in his arms so many times on the walk home from the grocers that he can't bend to place them on the floor without losing his grip and spilling them all across the floor. The lock clicks and he hip checks the door open, spinning on his heel and all but hopping over to the bar, thumping the bags down firmly as the middle one tries to slide to the floor and take the others with it. His mail sticks out from under the edge of a brown paper bag and he slides the thin stack free, flipping through it as he starts to unpack the groceries one-handed.

There's a bill for his personal mobile, a credit card statement, a mass printed birthday card from his bank with his name filled into the blank space at the top, and a letter from the storage units where he has all of Lisa's things reminding him that he hasn't sent in his payment this month. Attached is a florescent pink post-it with Gwen's rounded school perfect cursive.  
' ** _call me if you'd like some help with this._** ' Her personal mobile number is written large across the bottom and he's reaching to snatch it off the page and crumple it in his fist when the image of himself alone and surrounded by boxes of clothes that still smell like Lisa and books with her handwriting on the inside covers and through the margins hits him. Ianto leaves the note on the letter and sticks it to the fridge with a takeout magnet.


	6. Chapter 6

He's clean, showered, and the chicken is roasting in the oven as Ianto digs through the unfinished room that runs the length of his kitchen, looking for the small round dining table that used to sit under the window in their London home. The neat stacks of boxes that used to line the way to the heavier furniture in the back has been replaced by a cluster fuck of opened boxes with things spilling half out of them strewn everywhere, all of it blocking his way to the curve of blonde wood he can see propped in the back with more ransacked belongings piled on it. For a moment he contemplates closing the storage room door and driving over to Ikea for a new one before rolling turning back the sleeves of the black button down with a huff and beginning to carefully repack boxes as he works his way back.

He's lost track of time, settled on the floor with a box of photos spread around him when the knock on the door startles him back to reality and the acrid scent of scorched citrus.

"Fuck!" Pictures from the last Christmas party at Torchwood tower scatter off his lap as Ianto scrabbles to his feet and through the half cleared room. Smoke is seeping out of his stove as he slings the windows open and kills the gas before yanking the door open. Cheyenne blinks twice at him, a bottle of wine dangling loosely from one hand as she peers over his shoulder at the black cloud hanging at the top of his high ceilings before reaching one hand out and running her thumb over a smudge of dust on his cheek as she laughs.

"The good news is that red wines go _great_ with char."

"Sorry about this. Come on in, don't mind the billowing stench of disaster." She follows him in, placing the bottle on the red bar as he slings the sliding glass door to the balcony wide and opens the oven, fanning smoke away as he pulls out the blackened carcass of what should have been a fantastic lemon garlic chicken, setting it on the stove top. "I put diner in, went in the storage room to dig out the table and chairs, and lost track of time repacking boxes to get to them." She's still snickering behind folded hands as he tries to fan the air out with a towel. "Oi, little less of the amusement at my misfortune if you please."

"No. No, you're right, I'm sorry." Her voice is still bright with amusement as she comes around the bar, reaching up and plucking a cobweb from his hair. "It's not funny. Except that it kind of is. Want some help digging your table free?"

"No. I couldn't ask you to dig around in a dusty storage space to help me lug out furniture I should have had out of there months ago."

"It's no problem. We dig it out, it goes twice as fast with two people, and then we have wine and pizza. Besides, I'm a demon at assembling furniture." Cheyenne is scooping her hair off her face, twisting it up on the back on her head into a bun with an elastic plucked out of her purse. Ianto looks at the half open door, pictures on the floor just viable and then the expectantly smiling face in front of him, one eyebrow cocked and arms crossed stubbornly over a white silk blouse.

"Let's at least get you a tee shirt or something first." Her heels click across the floor as she follows him into his room, dropping down on the edge of his bed as he digs through his drawers. "Got to be a vest I'm afraid. You're a bit bustier than I am."

"Oh, just a bit. A vest though? I don't want to pop any buttons." He turns, brows furrowed and undershirt in hand.

"Why would it have buttons?" A flush colors her cheeks as she reaches out, snagging the thin ribbed cotton.

"Sorry, American to English missed translation. I thought you were offering me a vest. You know, buttons up, worn with a suit?" She's unbuttoning her blouse as she speaks and Ianto can't stop looking at her nails brushing against the softness of her skin.

"You're talking about a waistcoat." The image of her buttoned tightly into his black waistcoat, the pale pink lace of her bra peeking out the top is sudden, fantastic, and has him reaching into the next drawer for it. "You mean one of these?"

"Yes!" She plucks it from his fingers, holding it up against her body where it's framed by undone white silk. "See, that wouldn't button past...mid sternum maybe?"

"Are you sure?" A smirk crosses his face as he cocks an eyebrow. "You could try it on, just to see."

"Oh, really Mr. Jones? You want to dress me up? Cause that's kinda hot." He definitely doesn't pout when she lays the waistcoat out on his bed and shrugs out of her blouse, dropping it there as well. "But we should probably get your table out first or we won't do it at all." The undershirt is stretched paper thin over her chest so that he can see the lace of her bra through it when she tugs it on. "There we go. Ready for manual labor." She pauses to kick off her black and red pumps. "Okay, _now_ I'm actually ready."

The storage space is really too crowded for two people and roughly fifteen boxes filled with everything he didn't want to have to pack again when Lisa was better. Cheyenne pauses in the doorway as he picks up the pictures that scattered from his lap when he scrambled to put out the ruined food and answer the door.

"I'm going to have to move all of this out to even get to the table." He's not sure what he was thinking earlier because re-stacking is not going to work. He'll never have room to get the table on it's edge and turn it to roll out the door with everything else in here. If nothing else his favorite armchair, the one he picked up on the side of the road when he was eighteen that's held together down the backrest with duct tape, will block it from turning. Ianto digs his free hand into his hair. "I should have gone to Ikea and just gotten a new one."

"And then been stuck with two kitchen tables? Bah says I. We'll drag it all out, put the table back together, and then since I'm so fantastic I'll even help you put everything you don't want back in again." A soft grip wraps around his wrist, tugging his hand gently out of his hair. "Hey, seriously. I think you'll be surprised how much changing things up a bit in here will help, cause all of this?" She waves her free hand at the boxes. "You left it until Lisa was better. You wanted her to be able to help fix things up, to be involved in your lives when she got home, right?" It's a wrong assumption, but still close enough to the truth to make his throat tight. "Leaving it in here won't help, but setting it all up will. Take the word of someone who packed, redecorated, and then unpacked a two story house a couple months ago. It really helps."

"Can I hold you to that?" There's a shakyness to his laugh.

"Sure you can. So..?" He sets the pictures back into their shoebox and passes it to her.

"Put that on the counter for me. I'll lift the boxes down and you can drag them out of the way."

***

"Try turning it left. No, _your_ left Ianto!" The living room is a pile of boxes and Cheyenne is stuck in the storage room, hair coming loose around her face in sweaty tendrils as she presses her shoulder to the back of the recliner where it's wedged in the narrow doorway into the flat. She's got dust on her bare shoulder and all across the front of his vest and he abandoned his black shirt roughly an hour and a half ago.

"I can't twist it anymore left, the footrest is jammed. Just set it down. Set it down, it's too heavy for you to keep holding." He winces as she exhales in relief and drops her end roughly to the unfinished wood planks on her side of the wall.

"How the hell did you get this fucking thing in here? It has to weigh five hundred pounds."

"Kai, the weed guy downstairs? He helped me get it up four flights and through both doors. It's how I met him actually." And then he sold Ianto five Vicodin for the still black bruising covering his arms and shoulders from Canary Wharf since he had long since given his entire   
prescription to Lisa.

"Think he'd want to help again? Or maybe Owen? Cause I'm not a quitter, but I know when I'm licked, and in the epic battle of shitty chair versus Cheyenne Morgan, it's shitty chair one, Chy zip." She drapes herself half over the back, head pillowed on her arms as she blows straggling pieces of hair out of her face.

"I can go ask him." Because he's not calling Owen. "I'll be right back." The noise she makes is an exhausted little huff of amusement as she waves at the overstuffed thing blocking her into the small room.

"I'll be here."

He can hear the bass of whatever music Kai is playing from halfway down the stairs. Ianto bangs on the door to be heard over the pounding beat, hoping that he's not interrupting anything. The music cuts out suddenly and he can hear the other man cursing as he approaches the door.

"Who is it?"

"It's Ianto man, you busy?" The door slings open and the blond huffs at him, arms crossed over a bare and very hairy chest.

"Dude, you can't pound on my door like the fuckin cops bro. You gave me a bloody heart attack." There's a thick blue haze in the air and the big screen tv in the corner is paused on a guitar hero screen.

"Sorry, wanted to be sure you could hear me. Hey, you busy, cause I was wondering if I could get a hand. Cheyenne, the American girl, was helping me clear out that storage room and we've got that buggering recliner stuck in the doorway with her behind it. I was hoping you could give me a hand with it again."

"Yeah. No problem-o man. You want I should grab my bowl too?" It's amazing how quickly the other man agrees and it occurs to Ianto that maybe he does have a friend or two in his life after all.

"Sure."

"I'll throw on a shirt and be right up." He takes the stairs two at a time upwards as the door closes behind him. Cheyenne is still resting across the back of the chair when he turns the corner from door to kitchen.

"He says he'll be up in just a second to help free you. He also says he's bringing up his bowl if you want to smoke after we're done." She grins at him as she stretches until something in her back clicks audibly.

"That sounds fantastic. Your phone was ringing while you were gone." His phone's on the bookcase charging and he has two text messages, one from Jack the other from Gwen, both volunteering help moving his couch although technically Gwen's volunteers her boyfriend Rhys. He stares down at them, chewing on his lip. "Bad news?"

"What?" He looks up at Cheyenne and then back down to his phone. "No. No, just Jack and Gwen offering to come help unstick the chair. I mean, Gwen actually offered to bring her boyfriend Rhys who's apparently pretty big, works for a hauling company, and have him do the lifting instead of her but no, nothing wrong."

"So your friends from work offered to come help and you're looking like someone peed in your beer? Well, when you text them back, tell your boss I said he's a fucking idiot to offer to move this raggedy piece of shit chair with an extra hole in his torso."

"Jack can hear you, remember? Also, you can stop insulting my chair anytime now."

"I broke _three_ nails on this chair and it's trapped me in the hottest room in your house. I'm going to hate this thing until it's settled in the middle of your living room. Then, I will be nice to it because I had a shitty chair like this in college, but mine was brown fake leather with, I kid you not, hunter orange duct tape not just on the back rest but both arms and the seat as well. Not nearly as classy as this." She pats it and Ianto winces as he sees that two nails on her left hand are indeed much shorter than the others. "But comfortable as a motherfucker."

"What an awful phrase. You Americans, what is your obsession with 'Motherfucker' and exactly how comfortable can one be?" She grins at him.

"I dunno, how soft is the mom in question?" Kai walks in as he's pretending to gag and Cheyenne is slipping behind the chair because she's laughing so hard.

"Kai, this is Cheyenne. Cheyenne, this is Kai." Today's tee-shirt is red with an enormous yellow 'A' on the front. She leans across the back of the chair, legs flailing for balance as she extends a hand towards Kai.

"Pleasure to meet you Kai. Fantastic weed by the way."

"The same, and thanks. Brought some more for after we're done." He waves a small black velvet bag holding his bowl at her before setting it on the bar next to the wine.

"Good, let's get this damn thing out of the way then."

It takes the two men five minutes to wedge the chair securely enough on it's edge at an angle that Cheyenne can climb over it and out into the living room to steady it so that Ianto can slither in the same way. From there she perches on bar drinking a beer as she tries to co-ordinate their movements.

"Okay, try lifting the side closest to me a bit and wiggling it towards the front door. Ianto, keep wiggling cause if you can get it tipped a bit more you can recline the thing and it should lean back enough to go round the corner." Ianto curses as he sets his shoulder further down and shoves. "Be careful, it's coming free, almost got it, yes!" He stumbles on his own feet as the chair gives way with an audible scraping through the door, swinging easily as Kai turns it and drops it with a thud that shakes the floor onto all four legs. "You did it!" There's a damp spot on his shirt between Kai's shoulder blades and Ianto can feel his hair curling with sweat.

"Beers all around!" Ianto flops across the arms and into the overstuffed seat, legs and head dangling as he closes his eyes and thrusts a hand blindly into the air.

"Feel free to just set it in my open grasp." He almost drops it in surprise as a cold wet bottle is actually pressed firmly into his palm.

"Since you boys did the heavy moving, I can at least hand you an open bottle this one time." Peeling his eyes open, Ianto watches her hop back onto the bar opposite where Kai is breaking up weed and packing it into a thick blown glass bowl with swirls of yellow and red on a black background. It's frightening how normal this is. How much it's like the last four and a half years never happened and he's sprawled across Johnny Davis' couch watching a Rhiannon who isn't pregnant yet and her then-boyfriend drink and smoke. This was the life he was done with. The life he was going to be better than and he's never been so glad to have just a bit of it back, if only for a couple weeks.

"We should order a pizza soon. Pay you in pizza Kai?" Ianto moves his arm off his eye, digging deep into his pocket for his phone, scrolling through the contacts list. "In fact, should do that now. Nothing more shameful than being the idiot ordering a pizza high as a kite." Pizza Time is first on the list, so he dials even as he watches through lowered eyes as Cheyenne bites the corner of her tongue in concentration as she rolls a joint with nimble fingers, laughing about Alvin and the chipmunks. Briefly he wonders if Jack meant what he said, about just letting him go and then Cheyenne speaks with that thick accent and he remembers that she's the only reason he's doing any of this, trying so hard, and she'll be gone around the same time he goes back to Torchwood.

"...'Llo, Pizza Time, may I help you please?" The kid on the other end of the line sounds annoyed, as if he's been greeting empty air more than once.

"Sorry. I uh, I need to place an order for delivery." Kai is rolling his eyes, shaking the bowl in his direction and mouthing the words 'pre-emptive cut off' at him, followed by 'extra pepperoni'. He makes a rude gesture before turning his attention back to the phone. "I'm gonna need two large extra pepperoni with extra cheese." He rattles off his address as he watches Cheyenne swing her feet and light the joint. The kid on the other end of the line is repeting his order, rattling off a price and wait time as Ianto sips at his beer.

"Gonna be twenty to twenty-five minutes." The kid cuts the connection before Ianto can thank him and he leans forward, snagging the joint that's being dangled in his direction.

"We have about half an hour to get the table out and set up before the food is here." Cheyenne slides off the bar and presses her lips to his, shotgunning his hit as he exhales before nipping the weed from his fingers.

"You guys take a break. I'll roll the table out." Little puffs of smoke creep out with every word before she exhales his second hand smoke and inhales her own hit, passing the twisted paper behind her to Kai before disappearing into the storage space. Ianto considers calling her back and doing it himself but the table is light and he's exhausted from wrestling with the chair he's currently collapsed in.

"So, if that's how they grow them in America, I'm thinking about applying for a green card." He looks over at Kai who's wiggling heavy black brows in his direction, joint dangling from his bottom lip as he speaks.

"I think they need something more than 'gets good weed' on your application for citizenship before they'll make you a citizen. Maybe..." He drops his beer as Cheyenne shrieks, high and loud and something, most likely the table, crashes from the other side of the wall. Ianto's on his feet, hand reaching behind him for a gun that isn't there when she crashes into him at a dead run, eyes wide and panicked as she shoves away form him and climbs onto the bar still screeching. It's hard to bite back both annoyance and amusement as her scream evolves into words.

"Spider! Huge fucking spider and it touched me! It's fucking mutant huge! Kill it!" She's batting violently at her arms and doing an anxious little dance that has Ianto worried she's going to step right off the back. He's not the only one if the speed that Kai jumps up and behind her is an indication. If this is anything like Lisa's fear of rodents then nothing he can say will do any good until he returns bearing news of the tiny harmless enemy's demise. Rolling his eyes he snags the broom from the broom closet and stepping over the table lying drunkenly against the corner.

He almost steps on it a fat pale brown thing that's more spindly legs than anything else, lying stunned and curled in on itself in the middle of the floor. It's actually larger and uglier than he thought it would be and he smacks the broom down on it."

"It's dead!" He has to raise his voice to be heard over the continuous shrieking which quiets into wet gasps almost instantly as he comes out, befouled broom held away from him. Her face is blotchy with embarrassment and her eyes are overly bright with panic as she tugs at the shoulder of his shirt, trying to look at the back of her own shoulder without taking her eyes off the mess on the bristles as if it might jump out at her anyway.

"Keep it back. I'm allergic to the fucking things." He crosses the kitchen floor, flicking the bristles against the railing of the balcony and then leaving it leaning against the outer wall of the flat. When he turns back Cheyenne is sitting on the edge of the bar shivering and pawing at her back. Kai frowns down at where her hands are touching before looking over his shoulder at Ianto.

"Have any allergy medicine man, cause she's breaking out bad." Ianto frowns as he crosses the floor, tugging the shoulder of his shirt aside. A patch of skin almost as big as his palm is flushed red and covered in bumps that look tender.

"This looks kinda bad Cheyenne. Do we need to run up up to Accident and Emergency? You aren't going to stop breathing or anything, are you?" She hisses through her teeth as he touches it gently with the tip of a finger.

"Not unless it crawled into my throat. It's the stuff they shed I'm allergic to. Besides, my insurance is good, but not good enough to cover a non-emergency visit in a foreign country." Her teeth are chattering, from adrenaline he hopes.

"Well, we've got to do something about it and I don't have any allergy pills," His phone belts out Jack's ringtone for the first time in weeks and Ianto has the phone pressed to his ear before he really thinks about it. "Kind of busy Jack."

"I saw. Do you need me to send Owen over to look at it, cause I'm looking at her back on camera two and that looks ugly." He's torn. Part of him wants to demand Jack leave them, leave him alone, part of him wants to insist Owen be dispatched to his flat right now because the rash seems to be spreading slowly, but mostly he wants to make Jack tell him why this girl is worth helping and the other was not. He squashes that part down roughly, forcing himself to accept that maybe he knows the answer to that one already; even flirts with allowing himself to think that maybe that answer was the right one before stuffing that traitorous whisper as far down in his mind as he can. He opens his mouth to ask Cheyenne if she wouldn't mind letting Owen take a look at it before remembering that Kai is next to them, unaware that the three of them are being monitored in real time with sound.

"Not my call. Ask Cheyenne." Jack starts to say something but Ianto is already shoving the phone into the girl's hand, sweat prickling at the nape of his neck and the palms of his hands as the rash continues to get redder and more sore-looking. She's still shaking and now his hands are too as the adrenaline that pumped through him from the first shriek ebb back and he's left with the reality of another woman screaming and shaking and hurting while he stands back and does nothing. His chest is tight and getting tighter with each breath until a large hand grips the back of his neck, pushing nervously downward until Ianto is gripping the bar, gasping for air between his outstretched arms.

"Christ, that must have been a hell of a spider man. I'm thinking I should have gone in instead if you get the wobblies too." There's a smirk in Kai's voice behind the very genuine concern.

"Ianto. Phone." Cheyenne twists around with a hiss, pressing the phone to his ear.

"I ought to let you stand there gasping like a fish for stealing my coffee this morning." Owen sounds annoyed as usual as he speaks instead of Jack. "But since you don't even have some generic Boots antihistamine to go with your illegal morphine stashes Jack is sending me over to look at the girl. Send your stoner buddy downstairs before I get there and if you can nut up long enough, wipe down that entire red area on your girlfriends' back with alcohol. Oh, and your pizza is on its way up the stairs." The line disconnects before Ianto can find the breath to protest this second insistence of a relationship in less than twelve hours. He forces himself to draw a gulping breath and hold it despite the hitching in his chest, letting it out in a long stuttering exhalation.

"Owen is. Coming by. Also. I can hear the. Delivery guy. On the stairs." It's a small lie, but Kai doesn't need to know he can't actually hear anything but the tinny flat echo of his own voice over the pounding of blood in his ears and his own heaving gulps for air. He gestures at his wallet lying on the bookcase as a fist knocks on the door, eyes trained on his bare feet as Ianto focuses on drawing regular even breaths to the rhythm of the small finger tips tracing circles between his shoulder blades.

"Ianto, if you guys have someone coming with something for her back I'm gonna head home." The awkward 'and let you freak out in peace' hangs in the air unspoken.

"Sure. Grab a. Pizza. Thanks for. Helping." He can't make himself look up until the door closes again with a soft snick. "Fuck."

"Less talking, more breathing please." There's still a thread of discomfort in Cheyenne's voice as her fingers switch from a regular circular pattern to a mix of short angular movements and swooping curves that have him twitching his shoulder.

"What are. You doing?" The combination of short snatches of pizza scented air and guilt are making his stomach twist.

"Writing your name on your back in Cherokee. Well, the closest phonetic derivative anyway since Welsh to Cherokee is just a tragedy in action. It's not working very well, which is good since trying to break your name down to sounds that translate without overlapping it into something unrecognizable is distracting me from the fact that I want to scratch myself bloody." He focuses on the feel of her cool fingertips on his bare back until he can speak without gasping for air.

"Owen should be here soon with allergy medicine. Probably something topical too, but he said we should wash the site with alcohol before he gets here." His arms tremble as Ianto pushes himself upright, running his hands over his face and through his hair in an effort to pull himself together. He's drastically over reacting to a minor issue, he knows this, but he can't stop himself from wrapping his hands around Cheyenne's waist to steady her when she slides down to the floor. Keeping one hand on the small of her back as he herds her into the bathroom, Ianto is faintly embarrassed for himself at how close he's keeping her to him, a hand on her back as he helps her wiggle her sore arm out of the vest, fingertips wrapped around the curve of her waist as he fishes a bottle of rubbing alcohol from the medicine cupboard, even a press of his lips to her hair when she whines in the back of her throat at the first touch of damp gauze to inflamed skin. It's clingy, almost desperate, but it pushes back the sound of her voice raised in terror he couldn't stop. Again.

Either way Cheyenne hardly seems to notice, hands clenched in her lap except for when she randomly reaches up and brushes frantically at a random untouched patch of skin until he's forced to take the hand from her waist and catch her fluttering fingers, squeezing them.

"It's just your hair."

There's a brisk knock on the door before it opens without waiting for permission.

"Tosh tagged along." Owen call at the top of his lungs even though he must be able to see them through the mostly open door and hear the water running. He only lowers it to a normal speaking voice as he sticks his head into the bathroom doorway. "Come say hullo while I take a look at that disgusting looking rash." Under Ianto's hands Cheyenne snorts and swivels towards the medic.

"Oh, tell me how you really feel doctor. Please, I'm a big girl, don't soften the blow." Owen smirks down at her, fishing an unopened box of allergy tablets out of his coat pocket and flashing the still sealed ends at Ianto before handing it to the girl between them.

"Fine. I feel that the best thing I can do for you is watch you take two of those and then put a numbing agent on there with some gauze." The doctor fishes more unopened supplies out of his clothing before jerking a thumb over his shoulder. "Seriously, I can't work with you hovering over the rash like a mother hen. Go be a good host and talk to Tosh so I can get where you are and see what I'm doing."

Toshiko is hovering near the door, coat folded over her crossed arms as she gives him a small smile.

"Ianto. I thought, well Owen was coming anyway and I thought maybe you'd like a friendly face to keep you company while they're occupied" He smiles back at her, even though he's sure it doesn't look as inviting and friendly as hers did.

"Have a seat. Sorry about the mess." Tosh's heels are just as high as Cheyenne's were, but they step quieter across the floor as she joins him perched on the edge of the couch.

"I told Owen I'd ask while you were alone, in case it was something not for public consumption. What happened just now?" He almost wishes that this wasn't Toshiko next to him, but Ianto can't come up with anyone he'd prefer in her spot.

"Panic attack. The way she was screaming it just..." His throat goes dry, the rest of his words a dry whisper. "That's twice now I've had to listen to a girl scream and be useless." Because Cheyenne had screamed long and hard and Lisa had screamed like that when the machines had all stopped and she was trapped on the table, saws poised centimeters above soft flesh. Even if the experiences are so different it's laughable the sound of those screams, long, hard, and terrified are ringing in his ears. Tosh's hand over his is warm as she squeezes, thumbs circling the back of his hand.

"Oh Ianto." Tosh rests her head softly on his shoulder as he buries his face in his hands, fighting for the deep full breaths he was taking two minutes ago. Not another word is spoken between them, even after his breathing has steadied again. He's pillowed his cheek on Tosh's hair, concentrating on slowing the still too rapid pounding of his heart when Owen comes out, closing the door behind him.

"Alright, you I'm not going to even check. I know an anxiety attack when I see one. Best thing you can do is relax and sleep it off. And so you don't panic when she starts getting sleepy I gave her two T-3's. Those with the antihistamine are going to make her drowsy, so don't go thinking I retconned her when she falls asleep in fifteen minutes." Owen walk over to the bar and opens the pizza box, helping himself to a slice. "I left some creme, help her put it on in the morning for the inflammation and she'll be fine. Come on Tosh. Grab a slice and say goodbye."

"I'll see you later Ianto." Her small hands squeeze his firmly as Tosh rises and bypasses the pizza to wait outside the door. Owen rolls his eyes and grabs another slice, jabbing it in Ianto's direction.

"Sleep it of Tea boy." Ianto stays curled on the couch, watching as Owen lets himself out before resting his head on his drawn up knees.

"Ianto." Sleep must have slipped up on him, because Cheyenne is brushing his hair back away from eyes he doesn't remember closing long enough to feel sore and tight with almost sleep. Her nose wrinkles as she tries to hide a yawn. "Ianto, darlin? You need to get to bed."

"You should come with me. Owen said he's knocked you out for the night." She's clutching her bra in one hand and Ianto can just see the edges of tape and gauze peeking out of his shirt.

"That sound really perfect actually." Despite his urging to go ahead and get comfortable in the bed, Cheyenne leans against the chimney stack, watching him through sleepy brown eyes as he sticks the pizza in the fridge and locks down the flat. The echoes of screaming have stopped, but Ianto still walks the familiar floors of his home so that Cheyenne is always in his sight, fingers aching with what he recognizes as an irrational need to check the bandaging running across her upper back with the edges just visible. Tired, Ianto nudges boxes roughly out of the way with his toes on his way to the light switch. The flat plunges into darkness and he makes his way to the brick chimney in the center of the floor by memory, reaching blindly for her hand.

The back of his fingers brush the crook of her elbow and he can feel the shiver run across her skin as he trails his knuckles down the inside of her wrist, stroking the palm of her hand with the pads of his fingers before lacing them together. The absence of light and after shocks of panic makes her skin that much softer as he tangles both their hands together, tugging her gently against him until he can feel the steady slow rhythm of her breathing against his lips. Her lips part before his tongue as he frees her hands to cradle her head to kiss her slowly and enjoy the slick sweet taste of her mouth. A moan slips from her, sharp in the silence as he pulls back.

"Bed."


	7. Chapter 7

She lets him strip her slowly in the inky blackness of his bedroom. Fingers and lips slide up her body with each inch uncovered as Ianto slides the vest over her head. The silence is broken only by a series of small sleepy sighs and gasps as he nuzzles against the full curve of her breasts and nips at the soft skin of her neck. Spreading his hands across Cheyenne's back to keep her pressed skin to skin against him he presses his face to the top of her head to smell her shampoo, feathers kisses across her face, breathing deeply when their mouths meet again. Her hands are tentative, fingers fluttering against his skin as she traces along his shoulders and back, mapping out his body in the dark. The scars scattered across his body are numb, but the skin around them is hyper sensitive where her hands pause and linger on their way towards his belt. It's frighteningly intimate, this slow and silent exploration in the dark, but the satin warmth of her skin as he skims her out of her pants is chasing back the shakes in his hands and the band wrapped tightly around Ianto's chest.

The bed is two steps to his left. Ianto spins, pressing Cheyenne backwards and controlling her fall to the mattress to protect the bandaged area on her back. Part of him is waiting for her to speak and shatter this strange silent moment that they're tangled in. Instead she moves languidly with him as he rolls them onto their sides in the center of the bed, wrapping a leg up around his hip. There's a sleepy insistence to her movements as the woman in his arms presses closer to him to bury her face in his shoulder, her breath deep and easy enough that he'd think she had slipped into sleep if not for her hand slipping across his hip to curl around his cock and guide it to the slick wet heat between her thighs. A mewling moan escapes her as he hooks an arm under the knee draped around him, hitching her closer as he slides inside her, setting a slow rocking pace that sends thick shuddering bursts of pleasure up his spine. Gasps and whines are filling the heavy silence of the room as he fucks her carefully to keep from jarring the rawness of her back. A torquing of his hips twists him onto his back and leaves Cheyenne lying in a boneless sprawl across his chest, panting hot bursts of moist warm air across his throat. Pleasure has snuck up on him, leaving him groaning deep in his chest as his orgasm catches him unaware, rolling over him in pulsing waves that leave him panting and clinging to the woman over him.

"There you go." Cheyenne's whisper in his ear is thick with the promise of sleep. "It's alright. Everything's okay." Her words begin to slur as she slides deeper into the siren call of medicated sleep. "Everything's okay."

For the first time in what seems like forever Ianto falls asleep thinking it might be true.

***

 _::He's not sure how long he's been out since the wind came that ripped away the cybermen holding them all at weapons point as they waited in line for their turn to be converted. Panicked screams had briefly overwhelmed the shrieks of agony and whine of hot metal from behind the plastic sheeting with it's spatter of gore splashed thick and black across it when the wind ripped through the area, leaving the handful of humans on their feet untouched and pulling the metal monsters forcing them to walk to their deaths one step at a time off their feet and through the air. A flailing silver limb had lashed out in an attempt to wrap around the exposed steel beam closest to Ianto, crashing into the side of his skull and knocking him into it, then to the floor and, he would guess, into unconsciousness. There's no one in sight and for one mind shattering moment Ianto thinks he's been mistaken for a corpse and left here, abandoned when the rest fled. It's the sudden rush of sound that brings him back from the grey creeping in on the edges of his vision as he gags on the scent of hot metal and burnt meat while trying to breathe. He hadn't been aware that he wasn't hearing until the sound returned and he wishes so very desperately that it hadn't. Beyond the curtain voices are screaming for God, for their mothers, for help. Some are just shrieking. Long wordless howls that make him want to turn on his heels and run away as fast as he can. Surely someone must be here. He can't be the only one here not on a table. There were almost a dozen people in line with him. He can't breathe, can't think, can't move until a familiar scream shoots through him. Lisa is screaming, is crying, is calling his name. Ianto runs._

 _This is where the dream breaks. Even in his sleep, and he knows he's sleeping, dreaming, his mind can't process what he saw when he made his mad dash behind the gore smeared sheeting. It comes to him in little flashes and flickers. The feel of things slicker, thicker than blood under his shoes. The tackiness of drying blood on his hands from shoving through the hanging plastic. The piles. Limbs. Real human limbs in stockings and trousers and jacket sleeves with wedding rings and watches and oh-fuck-he-knows-that-color-nailpolish-watched-it-be-put-on-last-night. If this is what he remembers he's so scared to knows what's trapped in his brain, blocked so far in that he dares not remember it. So much is missing. There's nothing at all between seeing florescent purple fingernails in a jumbled pile and finding himself stumbling over cracked floors and broken office furniture and she's so heavy and she's crying::_

He doesn't wake up screaming, but that's because he can't breathe. His mouth is dry as Ianto chokes and gags on the stifling air that he can't seem to get enough of. Any of, actually. His skin is covered in a cold sweat and he thumps himself twice on the chest with shaking fists trying to shock himself into drawing the breath that's eluding him.

"Hey. Hey, hey, shhh. Oh no honey, it's okay. You're okay." Warm arms wrap around him, catching his wrists in a surprisingly firm grip and pressing them gently to his chest. "You're hyperventilating Ianto. You really need to go deep and slow." He can feel her heart hammering away as Cheyenne slides closer, pressing herself against his bare back. He can also feel the deliberately exaggerated breaths, a counterpoint to his heaving ribs. "You can do it. You're okay."

"Can't." Speech adds a new level of panic, using up the scant air reserves he's managed to snatch. He wants to flee, but his limbs are heavy and the room is spinning.

"Yes you can. Come on, Whatever it was, it isn't here now so I need you to start breathing correctly. In, pause, out, pause. Shhh. It's okay." She sounds half asleep, fighting against the medicated pull of slumber to slur soothing sounds in his ear. The weight of their combined hands tramps down the image of his heart pounding its way out of his chest. His ribs feel too small as he tries to gulp a deep breath and his body jerks when his hearts skips a beat and then doubles up. Squeezing his eyes shut Ianto forces himself to refuse the new burst of panic that feeling sends up. Now that he's got some distance between the nightmare of Canary wharf and this moment he can recognize the anxiety attack for what it is and start to work against it. "There we go. Keep," A yawn cuts her words in half. "going. Keep going."

"You can. Go. Back to sleep. Chy." If she minds the shortening she doesn't say anything. Maybe she's too tired to hear him. "I've. Got it." Warm dry lips brush the hair at the nape of his neck and she sighs out a smaller yawn. She's getting heavier against him, sinking back into sleep, but her arms remain locked as tight around him as they were when she was awake.  
He thinks that should bother him more than it does.

***

There's no rage or anxiety this morning as Ianto opens his eyes, just a strange hollow space inside him that's frightening and relieving all at once. His clock says it's a quarter to nine and it's another surprisingly beautiful day outside. The sunlight is streaming in golden and hot through the branches of the tree outside his bedroom window, reaching as far as their tangled hands still pressed to his chest.

"Mornin'." Cheyenne doesn't bother moving as she stretches like a cat around him. Pressing soft and warm against his back as she arches and squirms before slumping limply against him. He doesn't have it in him to feel guilty about how contented he is when she kisses the same place on the nape of his neck that she did last night. He squeezes her hands briefly as he yawns.

"Ugh, I'm slugging it this morning." Everything in him feels wrung out and limp and warm. "Let's not move." He can feel the vibrations of her laugh against his skin.

"How about you not move and I'll go make something not charred for breakfast?" She squeals as he spins in her arms, fighting back a smirk as he arches an eyebrow at her.

"Are you insinuating I can't cook?" Half her face is hidden behind the huge tangle of her hair, curls leaving shadows across the bridge of her nose before brushing the corner of her mouth.

"Well, I've eaten with you twice and both times something has burnt. It's less an insinuation and more an outright declaration based on previous existing data." She kisses his throat as he laughs. "Let me go cook." Ianto holds tighter just to feel her wiggle against him before letting go with an over exaggerated reluctant sigh. She perches on the edge of the bed and then hesitates. "Oh, and I meant to tell you last night; I'm gonna be out of town for the next two days, pre-project meeting with my employer, but I was kinda thinking," There's a light flush staining her cheeks and she's staring hard at his ear. "Well, I was thinking you have my number, I've got yours, and maybe I could give you a call or something while I was gone."

"Yeah. Yeah, I'd like that." He tries to stomp down the heat he can feel gathering at the base of his throat. He's not going to blush, not when he's been fucking her for days with an audience. Not over something as silly as her asking if she could call him. She tucks her hair behind her ear, shoulders slumping with relief.

"Good. That's...that's good, I'm just gonna go make breakfast now." She spins, pressing her lips to his quickly before bouncing off the bed towards the door.

"Hey, you want to use my robe?" He points at the black satin he uses during the summer hanging over the back of the door. "Jack's due over soon with the mail." And the vest she's reaching for on the floor from last night is almost transparent when stretched over her lush curves, the hem just flirting with the round swell of the bottom of her arse. "If you want it, I mean." Her movements are a bit careful as she wiggles her sore shoulder and back into the thin white cotton.

"Well, Jack's seen me heels to Jesus as many times as you have, so nothing to hide really, but I'll be glad to have something between me and the bacon." The robe swims on her, cuffs brushing her fingers and the hem swinging just above her ankles and it shouldn't be hot on her, but it is. In fact he thinks he may even be developing a bit of a kink for seeing her in his clothes. "If you haven't emerged by the time breakfast is done we're eating in bed."

"No. No crumbs in the bed." She's pulling the knot on the belt extra tight.

"Then you'll just have to roll out sometime with in the next half hour." Ianto considers following her out of the room for an entire second before flopping over on his stomach and burying his face in his pillow.

***

"Ianto not here?" Jack's voice snaps him back to wakefulness some unknown time later. He turns his head slowly against the pillow so he can see out into the living room. The edge of Jack's greatcoat is all that's visible next to the arm of his chair that's still just abandoned in the middle of the floor.

"He's here, think he fell back asleep though. Rough night, but you saw that." He's amazed by how calm Cheyenne's voice is, as if she's always had Jack Harkness just letting himself into where ever she happens to be first thing in the morning. "I'm making breakfast subs, you want a piece of bacon or something while you wait?" The blue-grey wool disappears from his line of sight and he can hear one of his cane backed kitchen chairs being moved across the wooden floor. Probably turned so Jack can straddle it.

"I never turn down home cooked food from a beautiful woman. Is there anything I can do to help? I could finish putting the table together for you guys, since it got sidetracked last night." He pauses. "If you don't think Ianto'd mind."

"I think you'd know what Ianto would and wouldn't mind better than I do Jack." Ianto wishes he could see their faces because Cheyenne sounds dryly amused and Jack surprisingly humble. He wonders if this is what Jack is like a step away from Torchwood.

"Yeah, you'd think that." There's a swish of air and Ianto can see the greatcoat flop across his armchair, hear Jack's heavy tread clomping across the kitchen and into the storage area. "How's that break out of yours anyway?"

"Not bad. Whatever that was Owen put on my back is fantastic. I'm going to get held in customs for trying to smuggle a million tubes of it back." This is now officially the weirdest morning he's had in months, going so far as to border on surreal. He's faking sleep in his own bed listening to his foreign rebound exchange small talk with Jack, who's so many different things that Ianto's drowsy bemused brain cannot come up with a word for him and his bizarre place in Ianto's life.

"You know, I can't tell if you're the biggest asshole I've ever met or a fucking saint." Ianto jerks his head up out of the pillow at the tone in Cheyenne's voice. Something not quite amused, annoyed, or wistful but almost like all of them. Jack though, Jack is very obviously and genuinely amused by the sound of his laugh.

"That seems to be the general observation. This is about Ianto?"

"Well, it's probably not going to be about what exactly you guys do that comes with house arrest with twenty-four hour monitoring, is it?"

"Nope. Not unless you want one of my many insultingly transparent lies I keep on hand?"

"I suggested importing coffee." Jack has settled cross-legged on the floor at such an angle that when he gestures a flash of tanned forearms can be seen past the door.

"I like that. I'm using that."

"Uh-huh. But yeah, what else do we have to talk about? Of course it's about Ianto. And you." He should get out of the bed, march right into the kitchen and put a stop to this conversation right now. He makes it as far as propping his body up on his arms so that he can see glimpses of the two through the crack between the door and the door jamb. If he twists his head to the side he can see the curious little smirk at the corner of her mouth as Cheyenne leans back against the bar, looking down over it at Jack. "Cause he mentioned that there was a Ianto and you, and while you've both made it insanely obvious that something fucked up has happened, you realize neither of you has actually said you're not still together? Are you? Am I stepping in the middle of something fixable?"

"Wow. That's a hell of a question." If Ianto leans left a bit he can see Jack in profile as he looks up at the woman next to the stove, one hand stalled on the Phillips-head tightening the legs onto his table, the other brushing his hair back from his face. "Besides, you two seem perfectly cozy."

"That's why it's important, cause you look at him like he gut shot you sometimes." The spatula clatters onto the counter and Ianto can see her piling massive amounts of things onto a plate in front of her. "He didn't, did he?" Jack has shifted across the floor as opposed to spinning the table and Ianto can see the exhausted slump of Jack's shoulders.

"Shoot me? No." There's laughter coloring his words.

"Didn't think so. But you can see how I'm getting some mixed signals here, can't you? The two of you are hissing and puffed up like two cats with your tails tied together except when something starts going wrong for one of you and then the other one is on it quick as Batman..."

"Quick as Batman, really?"

"Oh hush. That's not my point. My point is this; have you ever lost a lover Jack? Had someone who made your entire world better just by breathing taken away from you?" Jack is silent, but there has to be something on his face that doesn't translate into the tilt of his head or the set of his shoulders, because Cheyenne nods a little, sipping at a glass of the grapefruit juice she left in his fridge. "Then you know what this feels like for him. How it's like all of your guts have been ripped out and some fucker has just stuffed you from skull to toes with the thickest blackest rage you've ever felt. If you know that feeling then you know that someone has to be the grown up in this thing between you two and he can't do it. Literally, genuinely, is incapable of it at this moment in time." Jack stand and flips the table onto it's reattached legs with a grunt. "And stop lifting things with a hole in you."

"Oh this? I was barely hurt and this thing doesn't weigh a thing." It's easier to see them both now with Jack sitting at the table and indeed straddling a chair. Cheyenne makes an annoyed little huff as she sets a plate in front of him.

"Fine. You're badder than a gun shot. Just, can you do something about this thing between you and him? Cause he's a _sweet_ kid, Jack. He really is and I really like him, but all three of us know I'm just a temporary fix to whatever his big hurt is. I'm not gonna be in town long enough to do anything but give him something to think about while the worst of the hurt eases. Can you just figure out what you're doing and let him know? Cause I can't tell if you're always here because you're worried about him, or if you're always here to keep rubbing his face in whatever it was that went down between the two of you, and I'll bet you good money that he doesn't know either. Which is why I'm not sure if you're a saint or an asshole."

"It's more complicated than you're making it sound." Finally Jack is starting to sound a bit annoyed, his words short and clipped.

"Well of course it is. Any idiot who's been around the two of you while you butt heads can tell that this is an enormous clusterfuck that's part whatever you guys do, and part Lisa, and part lies...I can't even begin to imagine what it is between the two of you. But I can imagine that it would probably be easier to say whatever you have to say without trying to talk around the fact that I'm here more often than I'm at my stupidly expensive room at the Royal. I'm not going to be here for the next couple of days, in case you needed to talk to him, but if he wants me to be, I'll probably be pretty close by again as soon as I get back." Ianto hasn't been able to see her face the entire time she's been speaking, back to the door as she dishes up the two plates that are being placed down at the table as she spins around, but he can see it now. A twist to her mouth that looks like sympathy and exasperation all at once. "I'm going to go wake him up now, before breakfast gets cold. I'm sure he'll be right out..."

"Don't worry about it." Jack stands, picking up the uneaten half of a mini loaf of bread stuffed full of breakfast foods. "Tell him I'll be back though?"

"I can do that. Thanks, you know, for actually talking about this with me."

"Thanks for breakfast."

Ianto waits until he hears the click of his front door closing to sit up in bed, legs crossed as Cheyenne peers slowly around the corner.

"Well, you look wide awake. Did you catch the whole thing, or just some of it?" There's a tension in her shoulders and eyes that betrays the calm in her voice.

"All of it."

"And did you play possum because you were too mad at us to come out without fighting, or because you wanted to know what you'd hear if you waited long enough?" Ianto slaps back the instinctive surge of annoyance at being accused of eavesdropping in his own home and thinks about it.

"I'm actually not mad. I thought I would be, but I'm not." He holds out his hand and she crosses the floor quickly, setting into his lap as Ianto pulls her down. "Kind of weird, hearing you talk to Jack about me though."

"Yeah, but I wasn't wrong. Come on, we've got cheddar eggs, fried ham, bacon, more cheese, tomatoes, and fried mushroom making our bread soggy."


	8. Chapter 8

"Shit, it's getting late." Cheyenne comes out of the bathroom in a rush, pulling her damp hair up into a careless bun as she makes a dash across the floor towards her shoes. "I've got to get back to the hotel and finish packing if I'm going to make my train and I haven't even called my fucking taxi yet!" She shakes one black sandal at him with a pretty little scowl at the corner of her lips. "This is all your fault, Ianto Jones. I'm not sure how, but I can come up with something and make it stick."

"Oh, well, that's nice isn't it? Insulting the person who's driving you back to the hotel so you don't have to wait for a cab." Ianto snags his car key off the book shelf and flops down into his battered armchair, still in the middle of his kitchen, to watch her balance on one foot as she slips the strappy heeled sandal on her feet.

"That's very sweet of you, since I was going to ask for a ride anyway so I could then ask if it would be okay if you held onto a couple things for me while I'm out of town? Not a lot, my PlayStation and my jewelry. I just feel better not leaving them in the hotel for almost three days in a row, you know?" The look she gives him is all sheepish grins and big eyes. "You can play my video games."

"And you're bribing me with video games because we're twelve now?"

"Horseshit. Only aliens and pod people don't like playing video games." The corner of his mouth quirks as Ianto manfully squashes the urge to inform her that some aliens are just as fond of video games as humans, swinging his keys around his finger instead. "Besides, I see roughly every Bond novel known to man taking up space on your book shelf and I have like six 007 games in my cd book and that's not counting the games I don't actively loathe. Shit, I think I'm forgetting something..."

"I think you left your iPod next to the bed. How on Earth can you own six Bond games if you hate them?" Ianto raises his voice as Cheyenne curses and dashes back into the bedroom. "And how can you hate James Bond?!"

"I just do! I think he's a douche-canoe!" The key ring slides off his finger, smacking him in the chest as Ianto chokes.

"A what?!"

"Besides, those were James' games. The Bonds, the Maddens, the Grand Theft Autos, none of those are mine. Help yourself to the weed by the way since I obviously cannot take it with me."

Cheyenne bursts back out of the room, slapping an Altoids tin from her purse onto the bar and shoving the iPod into her pocket. "God, I'm such a shitty traveler. I'm always almost late and never remember everything. That's the weed in the mint tin and why are you making that face, cause I have to tell you, it's not flattering."

"First, all my faces are flattering," They aren't. Ianto is convinced that he looks like a large unhappy potato when he cries. Has been ever since Rhi told him that when he was eight. "Second, did you say Douche Canoe?" He pauses between the words for emphasis.

"I surely did. That's a descriptive gift from me to you, via the American Northeast where anything can be paired with a wide range of foul words. Anything. I think I've got everything. I'm definitely mostly sure that I have all the important things."

"You've got your phone, your keys, your wallet, your iPod, and the allergy stuff Owen left you?" She nods. "Then that's everything important anyway. I'll hold onto anything else for you. Now, back to the important thing. Leaving aside the fact that I have no idea of what a 'douche-canoe' is, nor do I want to, how can you hate James Bond? Using real words only please?" Cheyenne laughs and shrugs, hand resting on the doorknob as he stands.

"James didn't get it either. I just don't like him. And having been forced to sit through every one of the movies with running personalized commentary pointing out each thing in case I just 'wasn't getting it' and that's what made me 'think' I disliked Bond, I can safely say that it's a genuine and unchangeable disdain."

"Wow. That is sad. Really really sad."

"I also hate the Godfather. James threatened to annul our marriage when I admitted it." Ianto grins and crowds her against the door, kissing her.

"He was a wise man. I feel a bit dirty now, having slept with someone who hates both the Bond movies and the Godfather."

"I was hoping it wouldn't be a big deal on this side of the ocean." She kisses him back before thumping his shoulder with the flat of her hand. "I'm gonna be late for real."

"I'll just have to drop you off at the station then too." Cheyenne smiles up at him, sliding her hand up to cup the back of his neck and caress the side of his neck.

"Ianto Jones, in case you didn't know, you are really quite a fantastic guy." Simple pleasure floods through him. After a year of bending over backwards, or just bending over, to keep people distracted and pleased it feels strange to have someone so genuinely grateful with him for nothing more than an extra fifteen minutes in the car.

"Thanks. You're pretty amazing yourself."

***

He's waiting behind the wheel across the street as Cheyenne dashes out of the Royal fifteen minutes later in a pale pink linen skirt suit, pink and white sneakers on her feet, garment bag, duffle bag, and a pull behind suitcase with a smaller bag strapped atop it with her as she dodges through traffic.

"Bloody Christ, I thought you said you were only going for two or three days."

"I am. That huge ass army bag is all my video game stuff and my jewelry box. I'm only taking the two black bags and a couple changes of clothes with me." Ianto gapes at the huge olive green canvas bag almost filling half of his back seat as he helps her load her bags.

"You have got to be kidding me."

"No man, dead serious. It was just kinda lucky you caught me at the club because I don't go out when I'm working. Not ever. If I'm not working, then I'm playing video games and I had to bring my PlayStation and my Wii cause our players are all regional. It's got my mats, my guitars, all that shit is in there. And the big bag is all work stuff."

"I heard Americans were rubbish packers but really? Two game systems and all the things that go with them?"

"Okay, fine, I'm a crap packer and a nerd!" Her snarl catches him by surprise and he bites back a sharp word as she comes very close to slamming his back door before flinging herself into the front.

"Well what's the matter with you then?" She's turned away from him as he drops into the car, digging in a smaller suede bag that matches thin grey stripe running through her suit.

"What does it matter to you how I pack anyway? You know, this was the first year in ten fucking years that I went on a trip without having that argument at home and I'm just not into having it in another country with some one who's just a stranger I'm sleeping with! I know I'm a shitty packer, all right?! I figured that out when I had to wrestle all of them through three airports by myself." Her voice wavers on the word three and Ianto feels all the fight drain out of him as Cheyenne keeps her face turned towards the window as she takes a slow shuddering breath. He'd forgotten, just for a moment, why the woman next to him has been so very understanding. That she still hasn't put a year between herself and the loss of her husband.

"Hey. Look, I'm sorry, truly. It's none of my business how you pack. Don't cry, Chy." She sniffles as he lays his hand on the nape of her neck.

"I'm sorry. I am, I just. I've been thinking about James a lot this week. Missing him. We used to have that same fight, almost word for word Ianto, every time we went anywhere. I'd over pack, he'd unpack half of it but always the wrong half, we'd fight about it, I'd cut something back and in the end we'd need the one thing I left at home and not touch three quarters of what I had brought."

"I pack a travel iron to go camping." He wasn't planning on admitting that, but the choked laugh from the passenger side as he shoots out into traffic makes it worth it. "And a good shirt, a tie, and dress shoes because I can't shake the idea that there will be some kind of emergency that requires I not look like I've been in the woods with no electricity even though I have."

"Okay. I guess that's just about as bad as bringing your entire entertainment center with you across seas." She flips down the visor with one hand, wiping her face with the other and Ianto can see the smudged lines of her eyeliner and mascara around shiny reddened eyes in the reflection. "And stop peeking at me in the mirror until I can fix my makeup. I look like a raccoon." She fishes a smaller bag out of her purse, flipping it open and pulling a baffling array of things from such a small space before beginning to wipe at her eyes with a wet nap.

"I've always wanted to see a real raccoon. I've only seen them in magazines and on the telly."

"You aren't missing out on anything." He winces as she begins relining her eyes as he drives, swaying with the movement of the car. It always made him faintly nervous to watch Lisa do the same thing on days they were running behind for work. There's a small part of his brain that starts screaming about pointy objects sunk deeply into eyeballs from the moment a small black pencil comes out that doesn't stop until it's safely put away again. "They're fat little thieves who get into everything not bolted down and too much stuff that is. In fact, they're only cute the first time you see them, and only if they're across the yard. After the third time they open your trash cans and spread them across the lawn, you tend to keep a shotgun full of rock salt by the door with their name on it."

"Ah." Ianto hisses through clenched teeth as a car cuts in front of them and Cheyenne never falters, moving her hand from her face in a whip quick jerk only to go back to relining as soon as he lets off the brakes. "You're going to put your eye out."

"Please. If you can line your eyes in New York traffic, you can do it anywhere. How close are we?"

"Two minutes if the idiot in front of me can get off his mobile and remember how to do the bloody speed limit."

It's actually five minutes later when Ianto pulls up to the drop off point at the station and Cheyenne leans across the front seat, kissing him quick but thoroughly before bursting out of the car in a rush. He winces as the front door slams shut and the back is wrenched open almost simultaneously, Cheyenne diving inside and yanking bags out carelessly.

"I'll guess I'll see you in a couple of days then, probably call you tonight when I get bored without my PlayStation. Have fun, don't let Jack wind you up too much, play Kingdom Hearts if you haven't already!" She's out of the car again and halfway through the doors to the station before Ianto can say anything back, but when she pauses in the half open door to blow him a kiss, he can't keep from grinning back.

***

Jack is waiting outside his door as Ianto comes up the last landing. Ianto holds up a hand before he can open his mouth.

"Just let me get this inside first." The duffle is heavy and he's been unable to take his eyes off the leather luggage tag on the zip that has CWO-2 J.Morgan tooled into it.

"Dare I ask what's inside?" Ianto unlocks the door, swinging it open with his foot and gesturing for Jack to proceed him inside.

"Stuff Chy doesn't want to leave alone in the hotel for a few days. Video game consoles and jewelry she said." He's settled the long bag on the bar and is popping open a beer before it occurs to him that for the first time since he walked out of the hub there's nothing in him that wants to hurt Jack. He's not sure how long it's going to last, but Ianto closes his eyes to just savor the lightness of the moment.

"You know I have to search the bag, right?" Ianto opens his eyes with a sigh and sips slowly at his beer, watching Jack lean on the bar across from him, fingers drumming on the olive green canvas.

"I know. Just don't break anything you can't put back together please."

"And have to tell Cheyenne I broke her...whatever this is?" Jack brandishes a Wii at him with a faintly perplexed look.

"It's a Wii, Jack. Nintendo?" He smirks, watching Jack aim his wrist strap at the machine. "How does a man who built a mini-comp into a wrist band not know a thing about video games? My grand mum knows what a Wii is."

"Last time I played a video game there was an Atari in the hub and it sat on top of a console tv." Laughing with beer in your mouth is not advised. By the time Ianto has finished catching his breath and mopping spit beer off himself Jack has scanned the Wii, it's accessories, and is reaching for the PlayStation.

"Good to know the head of her Majesty's top secret alien control team is up to date on his tech." The corner of Jack's mouth keeps threatening to turn up and spoil his pout.

"Go ahead, laugh it up but I'll have you know I held the high score on centipede for three years."

"This is the saddest boast of video game prowess I've ever heard."

"Maybe, but I didn't need motion controllers, boards with gyroscopes in them, mats with arrows, or ugly plastic guitars to do it. Really, what is all this crap for exactly?"

"More fun than you're used to having with your clothes on, apparently." The smirk wins, chasing the exaggerated pout from the older mans face as he levers out an enormous cd case.

"Hey, I manage to fit quite a bit of fun into things before the clothes come off. Wow, how many video games does anyone need?" The huge black cloth binder is easily three inches thick and Jack is flipping through pages and pages of game disks, a small befuddled frown on his face.

"Spoken like someone who hasn't played a video game since an Atari that had already been obsolete for almost twenty years. There's no such thing as too many video games. As soon as I figure out how to make my Torchwood salary sitting on that couch playing video games, that's what I'm doing with my life." He slides the game book from the other mans' grasp, flipping greedily through and wondering how many he has time to try before he has to return everything to it's proper owner.

"Really?"

"Really what?" She actually does more 007 games than him. There are four in the storage unit in Newport where the rest of his life from London is tucked away, but Cheyenne, or her husband anyway, had nine and he's already trying to decide which to play first.

"You'd really trade real aliens for game ones?" Jack is using that flat 'no tone' of voice that he uses when something is bothering him.

"What? No. Of course not. It's a fantasy, like laying naked on a million pounds on your own private island and not burning." He looks up as Jack laughs loudly. "What?! I burn. Seems pretty stupid to wish to lie naked in the tropical sun on enormous piles of cash and turn red and painful. And it beats Owen's favorite drunk wish..."

"A bottomless red curry and a cast iron colon." Jack rolls his eyes as he finishes the sentence. "He needs to wish to be less toxic after he eats them. He's been taking advantage of your absence to order Indian three or four times a week. Gwen locked him in the toilet last week to escape it."

"How are things? At the hub?" Silence stretches between them for a breath too long to be anything but awkward before Jack flashes his 'nothing to see here' empty grin at Ianto.

"Oh, business as usual. Weevil hunting, paperwork, your dinosaur keeps trying to kill me by dropping things on my head from her perch and making this weird noise. Owen says she's trying to drive us all insane and Gwen thinks she's calling for you, like a broody hen missing a chick." His fingers skate over and over something large and flat just inside the canvas bag as Jack very deliberately doesn't look at him. "And she may not be eating."

"What?! Why didn't you tell me before Jack!?" There's a slowly tightening pain in his gut at the thought that something is wrong with Myfanwy, has maybe even been wrong with her since that night.

"Because Gwen's right and she's just sulking because she can't find you! She's just brooding, and making that awful racket calling for you, and eating anything anyone leaves out but not touching her food because she's just smart enough to think sulking will get her what she wants!" Ianto winces as Jack pulls out a long rectangular jewelry box and sets it down almost too roughly on the counter.

"Or maybe she's bloody well starving and refuses to eat anything you lot leave around for her since the last thing you told her was fucking food tried to kill her!" Jack whirls on him, mouth open in a snarl and freezes, unable to begin. "Yeah, didn't bother thinking about the fucking consequences, about what happens if the dinosaur survives, did you? Well, there you go. You tried t-to f-feed Lisa to her and Myfanwy remembers, so have fun trying to pretend like you care with her since she seems to be the only one in the entire Hub smart enough not to keep falling for you and your penitent act."

Ianto can feel his nails cutting little half moons into his palms as he forces himself to keep his fist by his side. He's such an idiot, letting himself start to buy into Jack's 'It-was-for-your-own-good, I'd-be-sorry-if-it-wan't-all-your- fault-anyway' bullshit. A shaking hand tips the last of the beer down his throat, washing back the taste of bile in the back of his throat.

"Why are you even here Jack? You're always here! Every day since I walked out of the Hub you've been here. In my home with our things, with Lisa's things, rubbing my nose in it. And every time, every bloody time I think that it might be starting to not hurt so-fucking-much that I can't breath or think, there you are again!" The bottle makes a warbling ring as it slips from Ianto's numb hands, spinning on the wood floor but not shattering.

"I'm not trying to..." The older man has his back ramrod straight, gaze locked on the multi-photo top of the box between his ridged arms.

"Well you are! It's a fucking wound Jack, okay? I was going to spend the rest of my life with that girl. I was going to ask her to marry me and every time I think about that my heart does this weird skipping thing. Like someone actually literally ripped it out when I was to busy remembering to notice but the hollow space tries to keep beating anyway. And then you show up and just looking at you, that fucking guilt on top of everything else, is like having that same black, cold, empty spot dug at. It's not going to heal if it keeps getting dug at and I really need it to heal. I need it to feel better, okay Jack? Cause I can't feel like this forever. I can't do it."

Ianto's pretty sure he's crying. His face feels hot and wet like he's been crying. His body is shaking and cold, shoulders heaving as he gasps for breath, but Ianto can't find the sense of shame that always accompanies his tears. Can't find it anywhere in himself to hide how very shattered he still feels from anyone if it means even the slightest chance of Jack leaving.

"Please stop coming here Jack. Hold my mail at the Hub until suspension is done, add more cameras, I don't know. I don't care. Just please don't come back anymore Jack. Please?"

"I just wanted," Jack's voice is tight and quiet. "I just wanted to make sure you're okay. Because I do know. I know what it feels like, hanging onto lies and life by the skin of your teeth because you're too busy saving someone you love to save yourself. I know that rage that needs someone to beat itself out against. And I know what it feels like when you fail, before you manage to get it though your head that there was nothing to be done. I just didn't want you to feel like you were alone when you realized that there was nothing you could have done and it wasn't your fault."

Ianto can't feel his legs. He can't feel his legs, or his hands, or his face even though can taste blood from where he must be biting his lip too hard. He can't feel anything except that too tight stuttery pounding in his chest as Jack gives him a sickly paper thin grin, eyes still on the photos between his hands.

"I'm pretty sure there's some way for me to make this worse and I'm equally sure if I stay here I will find it, so I'm just going to let myself out." This is a moment. This is very obviously a moment and there is a very obvious path to take that he will see looking back on it. Ianto just wishes it were the kind of moment where 'near silent hysterics' is the correct response because right now, it's all he's got. He's covered in tears and red faced and can't say a thing as Jack walks to the door without ever looking at him. Jack pauses, hand on the doorknob, face mostly hidden between the up-tipped collar of his coat and the limp fall of his hair. "I haven't said this, because it didn't feel like the time or the place, but I think I really need you to know. I'm sorry. I am more sorry than you can imagine for what had to be done. I'm sorry I couldn't come up with another way, an easier way for her. I'm sorry I didn't know she was there. I'm sorry I didn't see you. I just, wanted you to know. I'll see you when you get back to work."

The door clicking gently shut behind Jack sounds much quieter than Ianto thinks it should.


	9. Chapter 9

Ianto keeps finding himself doing things without remembering when he started them or how long he's been at it. Blinks and finds himself stirring coffee and not remembering when he made it or knowing if he's put sugar in it or not. Blinks again and he's sitting on the couch staring at Cheyenne's jewelry box in his hands, drumming his fingers over a collage of her life wondering if he ever drank that coffee or not. He doesn't bother freaking out. He googled it in a panic the first time it happened, just days after Canary Wharf. Wikipedia had reassured him that the mini blackouts weren't uncommon after the kind of epic shit storm he'd barely staggered out of and mostly he seems to make coffee when he can't remember. Like someone hit his default button.

He doesn't realize someone has been knocking on his door over and over until the sound stops and a key flips both his locks.

"Ianto? It's Gwen. I'm coming in, all right? Owen called and asked me to come by and check on you." She's speaking clearly through the door, the cop in her coming out as she opens the door slowly, peering around the chimney stack and giving him a small smile. "Oh, there you are then. Do you mind if I come in?"

"No, not at all." His voice is horse and thick, as if he's just woken from a nap. Gwen picks her way carefully through the dim evening light coming in through the skylight around the piles of boxes still littering his living space. "Sorry about the mess. I meant to pack it all back away today but I guess time slipped by me."

"Well, rough days can be like that I suppose." He wonders how much time Gwen has spent watching him as she makes her way unerringly to the light switches on the far wall, turning on the track lighting in the kitchen and the dim ceiling fan directly over head. "Besides, you should see mine after Rhys and I have both worked a heavy week. Turns into a sty somehow without either one of us hardly being there. Can't for the life of me figure out how it happens." Ianto draws up his knees, tucking his feet under him to make room for her at the foot of the couch but Gwen just drops her jacket and purse there and turns back towards the kitchen. "Right, I'm no Ramsey, but I can heat a wicked can of soup. Tomato or cream of broccoli?"

"What?" He thinks, just for a moment, that he must be hallucinating and maybe he should call Owen, but he blinks again and Gwen is still standing next to his stove, saucepan in hand.

"I'm making you soup. Since I'm here and you look awful."

"Wow. _Thanks_ Gwen." Her blush makes her freckles stand out as she chews on her lip.

"Sorry, that did come out a bit harsh. Fine then, you look like you could use someone to make you soup, and put on your favorite movie, and just sit with you for a while." She gives him those super earnest eyes she does so well. "You just kind of looked like you could use a friend today."

"Oh." Gwen shrugs one shoulder, a bashful little gesture that Ianto would have sworn was a practiced move until just now.

"Yeah. So, then. Tomato, you think? Maybe with some toasted cheese sandwiches?"

"Sure Gwen. Sounds fine."

Gwen outside the Hub is just as big a chatterbox as she is inside. She starts with a story about her old partner, PC Davidson, and how he called today to tell _her_ a story about something at a pub last week and by the time she sets two bowls of steaming soup on the low table next to the couch with a plate of sandwiches and two beers she's on to some unfortunate soul saddled with the moniker of 'Banana boat'.

"That is not that poor souls name."

"Cross my heart Ianto, Rhys has known him since Uni and that's what everyone calls him. At work and everything." She presses a beer into his hand with an arched eyebrow. "And don't you have anything not beer to drink?" He can't stop the half smile that crosses his face.

"Yeah, there's tequila in my room somewhere and vodka in the freezer."

"Ahh, to be twenty-three and drinking like a fish again without paying for it all the next day. Movie?"

"Thunderball."

"Says the man who _actually_ works in confidential service to her Majesty. Honestly, boys." Gwen rolls her eyes at him, even as she plucks the dvd from the shelf mounted to the wall under the flat screen that hung on the wall between the bedroom and the loo, slipping it into the player and flopping backwards onto the couch before passing the soup over to him.

It's delicious.

***

"I'm sorry Gwen." Sean Connery and Claudine Auger are dancing across the screen and Ianto knows he should at least have the balls to look Gwen in the eye for this completely inadequate apology he's about to deliver, but he doesn't look away from the screen. "You almost died because of me, my decisions and I know it can't begin to cover that, but I'm so sorry. I never meant for anyone to be hurt though, I swear I never thought it would come to this."

"Well of course you didn't Ianto. That's why they're called good intentions." Gwen is curled up, eyes still on the screen, stocking feet tucked under her jacket. "I know you're sorry sweetheart, all's forgiven." That, the ease of it, manages to pull Ianto's eyes too her the way guilt couldn't.

"No, Gwen. I don't think you know how close you were to death as a best case scenario."

"Jack showed me the reports from the Torchwood 1 clean up. I saw what those things looked like, and what happened, and everyone keeps saying I don't know the bullet I dodged. That even now I can't understand how much worse everything could have gone. And they're right, I guess, because I _cannot_ imagine what could be worse than what happened."

"Lucky you."

"Everyone keeps saying that too; like there's no way I'll ever understand any of it and it's a waste of time to try and explain it. I'm stuck outside on this one and I don't know what to do to help and I'm not sure if I'm feeling left out or really _really_ bloody grateful."

"You feel grateful." Gwen whips her head around as he reaches out, grabbing her ankle where it's resting closest to him and squeezing to make sure she's focusing on him. "You put it in your fucking _prayers_ how grateful you are that one half mad, damaged, m-monster of a Cyberman is all you've seen." It feels like his heart is made of glass, shattering in his chest and every pump driving the shards deeper but he can't stop talking now that he's started. "Get on your knees every damn night and be, be _glad_ , that all of you killed her because she was never going to stop Gwen. Oh god, she was never going to stop. Not ever, because she was dead. She was dead the whole time and I loved her so much I almost killed you and everyone else." Gwen makes a soft sound in the back of her throat, sliding across the couch until she's close enough to cup the back of his head in her hand, drawing him closer until his head is cradled against her shoulder, her body blocking him from the cameras as she rocks him gently.

"Shh, it'll be okay. Maybe not for a while, but it'll be okay. It will."

***

 _::Are you enjoying the games?::_

The text message sends his phone buzzing along the side table right as Bond and Largo begin their battle on the boat. Gwen got a call from Rhys half an hour ago to remind her she was late for something that left her bright red as she made her excuses and fairly flew out the door.

 _::Haven't touched them yet. Bunked out on the couch w/ the remains of tomato soup and toasted cheese watching Nond movies::_ The text is in the process of sending before he spots the misspelling. He's typing out a correction as the phone rings in his hand.

"Grilled cheese with tomato soup on the couch with your favorite movies? Rough day?" He thumbs the mute on the remote, slumping down into the corner of the leather couch and tossing one leg over the back.

"Pretty good guess." There's a muffled rustling in the background on Cheyenne's side of the line.

"Didn't have to guess. Comfort movie plus comfort food equals rough day. Personally I'm all about cookie dough and Mame, but you know what they say, different strokes and all that jazz. Hold on a second, I'm getting changed." Lisa was like that on the phone, always putting him on hold and setting the phone down to do something else. She used to say if someone wanted her undivided attention that badly, they'd come round to see her face to face. "Sorry. It's been a long fucking day and all I want is to put on these super ugly pajamas and sprawl on the bed." He can actually hear the impact of her body on the mattress.

"Super ugly pajamas, huh?"

"Orange plaid on a very purple background, about four sizes too big for me, and made of that fake fiber that turns into molten plastic at the slightest suggestion of fire. Wanna tell me what's got you curled on the couch in the dark with comfort food and movies?"

"No. Want to tell me why anyone with eyes would wear orange plaid over purple?" There's an afghan in one of the boxes closer to the door, but looking for it feels like too much of a bother when Ianto can just force himself to roll off the couch and drag the duvet off his bed instead, tossing it into a crumpled pile halfway off the couch on his way into the kitchen for a beer.

"James and I were briefly in an ugly pajama war in our early twenties. I thought I won with an unflattering holiday nightie for older women, covered in tacky fake lace and ugly cartoon Christmas stuff and it was the most hideous thing I had ever seen him in. I think he actually got this fabric from Wal-Mart and _paid_ someone to make these. They’re just the most unflattering thing in the history of unflattering things, fucked if they aren't super cozy though. Jack came back, huh? He seemed like he really needed to say something to you this morning." Ianto goes the long way back to the couch to snag the weed off the bookcase.

"Well, plenty was said. What'd you do all day?"

"Slept on a train, spent an hours' drive reconsidering which translated samples of my work I was going to show before going with the one I decided on back in New York and then deleting half of it in a nervous fumble which is why I always keep a backup copy on my flash drive. Um, ate the blandest chicken I've ever had. It was awful man. Oh, and the client didn't want to see any of the prepared samples. He has a work on site that he wants translated within the next thirty-six hours and I can do it, it's only, you know, thirteenth century Urdu, whatever." She scoffs lightly.

"Of course, thirteenth century Urdu." Ianto can't keep the smirk off the corner of his mouth as he sprinkles pot onto a rolling paper. "Why not just laugh in your face and write it in crayon while they're at it?"

"I can hear your eyes rolling Ianto Jones." And he can hear her trying not to laugh.

"You most certainly cannot. I've got the kind of straight face that busts the tables in Blackpool." The kind of straight face that lets you get away with smuggling cybermen.

"Please. I've gotten drunk with librarians, archivists, and linguists of all types. I can pick out an invisible eye roll half way across the globe. And it's _maybe_ not as easy as I'm letting my huge ego say it is. But, it is doable in the time span, as long as you're very good."

"And you're that good then?"

"I am fucking fantastic in my field, thank you very much. Plus, it's a later sample from a work I've done translations of before. Wait, stop. I'm about two words away from going into a geek monologue about my field and that's only sexy to other nerds." He wonders what she'd think if she knew he could go into a half hour long babble about the ten most common alloys that wash up in their part of the universe and how only one of them can be forged with materials on Earth but would probably require a nuclear event to smelt it.

"No, it's sexy. Confidence is always sexy, especially to those of us who have been faking it since we discovered we could."

"Of course you're faking it Ianto. Everyone fakes it. For every one hundred decisions you make without anyone seeing you flinch, you'll spend every moment before and after second guessing ninety-nine of them. I do anyway. Ianto, you sound miserable darlin. Do you want to talk about it or do I have to keep pretending I can't hear it?"

The rolled joint dangles unlit from his fingers as Ianto draws his knees up, head resting on them,

"I do. I _really_ do, cause I think you'd get it. Maybe, I mean, you're pretty brilliant so far, but I can't. I _can't_ tell you."

"That sounds sad and a little scary Ianto." Her voice is soft. "I've been playing along here kiddo, but seriously, should I be worried for you? Should I be worried for _me_?"

"No! No, God, it isn't like that. I swear, whatever you're thinking this isn't that. I just can't talk to you about it."

"That sounds awfully lonely for someone going through what's happening to you. Who do you talk to?"

"I used to talk to Lisa. I used to think she could hear me, but I don't think so anymore. I talk to you. Kind of." He curls his arm around his head. "I can't, just tell me something about thirteenth century Urdu. Please?" He thumbs the speaker phone on and rests the mobile on his duvet covered knees, lighting the joint as Cheyenne sighs and begins to tell him about the process of translation and the most accurate methods for what she'll be doing. Absently he takes a long pull on the twist of paper in his fingers, listening carefully and wondering if any of what she's saying could be applicable for cataloging the masses of unknown languages littering up the archives and reducing places in his filing system to round-non-magnetic-things-with-cords-and-without. He wishes he had a pen and paper nearby as she keeps talking, telling him about characteristics she uses to identify a language.

"Wow, are you actually listening to me? I thought you might just be looking for a soundtrack to your depression, but you sound like you're actually listening."

"I am actually. It's interesting. I didn't realize how much grunt work goes into translations." He grins. "I had this image of you behind a big old wooden desk in a dim room with these sexy little square glasses and your hair up just flipping through these huge musty books and I dunno, copying over in the correct language."

"Wow, sexy little square glasses and musty leather books, huh? That's kind of a detailed image."

"I have a vivid imagination. You used to wear a black suit with the skirt too short, but I've since replaced that with what you were wearing today, about three inches shorter."

"Not leaving much to the imagination, are you?" She laughs.

"Of course I am, you're behind that big desk after all. I just like thinking you're not wearing much on the other side of it."

"So naughty linguist instead of naughty librarian then? I'm not at all surprised. You were a hot for teacher kid, weren't you?"

"Oh god no! I had the most unlucky progression of old or unattractive teachers of anyone I've ever known." She's giggling into the phone and Ianto wonders how she looks sprawled across some other bed in the ugliest pajamas he can imagine. "I'm starting to think everyone who talks about their hot teachers are lying because I've never had one. Ever."

"Wow, that's not fair at all because I've had at least one a year since high school. It's an act of God that I made it though half my classes with the grades I had since I was too busy ogling to take notes. You know I took up all your hot teachers, right?" He snorts on an inhale and can't stop laughing through the choking smoke still in his lungs.

"Stop, I'm smoking and you're killing me!"

"Nut up sunshine, you'll make it. If you didn't inhale like you were trying to take the entire thing to the head in one go you wouldn't choke every time I was funny." His eyes are watering by the time Ianto catches his breath, flushed with a grin on his face.

"Good thing you're not that funny then."

"I am freakin hilarious I'll have you know. I happen to know the worlds most perfect joke involving a trucker and a parrot." On the screen the dvd has defaulted back to the menu screen and Ianto picks up the phone before slumping down into the couch and pulling his blanket up to his chin.

"I think I'm inebriated enough for a parrot joke. Let's hear it."

***

It was, in fact, the best joke involving a lorry driver and a parrot he's ever heard. So good in fact that he had to counter with one about two priests and a leprechaun. Turns out Cheyenne is the kind of girl who snorts when she laughs too hard and finds it hilarious enough that it sets her off again.

"Oh, oh wow. Loved it. I cannot wait to go home and tell that joke. I have four brothers who will adore it."

"Four brothers, really?" The ceiling fan is sending shadows dancing across the exposed beams above him, flickering across the edge of the chimney stack and off again and if he turns his head Ianto can just see the edge of the moon in the bottom corner of the skylight. Absently he finds himself wondering when it got so late. While he was watching movies or perhaps during his introductory lesson in linguistics.

"Two older and two younger. Zane is thirty-six, William is thirty-two, Anthony is twenty-two and Smith is sixteen and adopted. You probably saw a picture on my jewelry box if you dug out the videogames. It would be the one of me surrounded by what appears to be half an NFL defensive line." He did in fact notice that very picture because Cheyenne has her arms wrapped around the thick necks of two ridiculously large men and you can see her feet dangling close to a foot off the ground.

"I did notice it. Smith is the ginger one then?"

"With the huge hair? Yeah, that's Smith during his 'Claudio Sanchez is my hair hero' phase."

"So, hold on a second," Ianto reaches blindly over his head, feeling about until his hands brush the edge of her jewelry box before pulling it into his lap. "Okay, now who's who?"

***

"Cheyenne? Cheyenne, are you asleep?" The moon is halfway past the upper edge of his skylight.

"No. No-ish." Her voice is soft and thick in Ianto's ear and he can hear the pillows move from where she must have the phone pressed between it and her face. "I should be. Keep telling me about your sister's kids."

"We should go to bed." Ianto turns his face and muffles a yawn into his blanketed shoulder. "We've been on the phone for hours now I think."

"Three hours and twenty-three minutes according to my phone. I don't care. Tell me about Mica's play, you said she was a butterfly?"

***

“Ianto? Ianto, I think we’re sleeping. It’s three in the morning. Hang up the phone.”


	10. Chapter 10

Ianto wakes up on the couch with a stiff neck and digs his phone out of the crack between the cushion and the arm of the couch. It’s past noon according to the time on the screen and there’s a text waiting for him.

 _::I’m apparently too old to stay on the phone until three in the am::_

He sends her a semicolon and an uppercase P on his way to the bathroom. He’s detouring for the end of the bar closest to the door where Jack always leaves his mail if Ianto is still sleeping before remembering that his mail won’t be waiting there. He sets the phone there instead and heads for the shower.

“This place is a sty.” His voice echoes oddly in his ears as Ianto steps out of the bathroom, tucking a towel around his waist. Boxes are still scattered in a dusty half opened trail from the storage room throughout the living area and the chair is still blocking the walkway between the kitchen tiles and the wood flooring of the living room. Ianto weaves his way through them and pokes his head into the fridge with a scowl. “My house is a pig pen and I have nothing in my fridge but beer, cheese, old pizza, grapefruit juice, and eggs. This is ridiculous.” The scattered boxes, bare fridge, and empty spaces filling his floors and walls send a bright almost unfamiliar surge of irritation and energy through him. “Where’s my notebook?”

A quick rummage through the junk drawer next to the stove unearths a pocket sized spiral bound notebook and a blue pen. He leans on the bar, hand flying as he starts three different lists.

“Food, cleaning supplies, flat.” He fills the list for food off the top of his head as he forces himself to drink a glass full of the acidic pink juice. He fills it with the things he was getting before, things that wouldn’t go off if he slept at the hub on the floor next to Lisa for a week between jobs before making it home for a day or two. He stops half way through the list and rips it out, crumpling it and tossing it over his back into the bin. The new list is full of fruits, meat, and fish. Things he won’t be leaving to spoil because he will be coming home every night baring rift related emergencies. When he finds himself adding Lisa’s favorite tea to the list, the one he used to brew and leave next to their photo in the hub for Lisa to smell, he simply crosses it off with two bold strokes. It hurts like a belt to the gut, which is better than the kicked-in-the-balls-stabbed-in-the-chest combo he’s been feeling.

By the time he’s got everything he can think of, his hair has dried into curls against his neck and down across his forehead, the ends threatening to dangle in his eyes. He’s well overdue for a haircut. Was actually overdue before everything went to hell but careful styling kept it under control. This though, is beyond beating flat with product. He adds haircut to the bottom of the grocery list and underlines it twice before grabbing his phone and heading for his room.  
Getting dressed is attempted with his mind turned towards a day of errands and dust. His cleaning jeans have so many holes in them Ianto is pretty sure they’re held together by the waistband, the seams, and voodoo. Bleach spots are scattered across the shins, there’s peach paint on the right knee, and he goes commando every time he wears them because there’s a set of rips high enough on the back of the thighs that the legs of his boxers can be seen through them if he wears any. Flopping backwards on the bed Ianto reaches over his head and fumbles his cigarettes off the nightstand. Lighting one, he dials his bank number from memory to check on his account balance before he finishes dressing and heads out.

The number the automated line gives him is higher than it should be. Much higher. When he asks for the breakdown of deposits, they’re all from the dummy corporation that does the Torchwood payroll.

He’s dialing the main Hub number before he can talk himself out of it.

“Toshiko Sato speaking.” Ianto isn’t sure what he’s feeling when it isn’t Jack who picks up the line.

“Tosh, it’s Ianto. I just called the bank and I’ve got some unexplained deposits to my account?”

“Well.” He can hear her fidgeting in her chair, nails clicking too aimlessly across the keyboard for her to be pulling anything up. “That. You, um, well that is, Jack was going back through the records and since you officially were never severed from the Torchwood One payroll you qualified for your line of duty pay for Canary Wharf.” She takes a deep breath and he can hear the dry click when she swallows. “And so did Lisa Hallet.”

“Oh.” He’s not mad. He wonders if he should be, tries to be and feels it slip through his fingers. A couple days ago, a week ago he would have been angry, livid in fact. Today, paired with Jack’s half whispered apologies from yesterday, it feels like an admission that Lisa was a person. A real person who was failed by the system she worked to keep in place.

“I know it’s not…”

“It’s fine Tosh. Really it is. Thank you.” He can hear a scuffling in the background, easily picking out the thud of feet on the metal flooring and Jack‘s roar. “Owen?”

“It is. I think Jack found the collage of lewd photos of you he set to be the background on your computer when you came back.”

“He did.” A second phone is lifted with a clatter and Owen sounds quite pleased with himself. “I think it was using his desk to work from that did it.” Ianto’s grinning up at the camera above his dresser before he can tell himself not to.

“Owen, the only person who gets cheered up by pulling pigtails is the one doing the pulling.”

“Good to know. Jack! The tea boy is calling you a pretty pigtailed princess!” Owen crashes the phone down as heavily as he lifted it from the cradle and Tosh is snickering into the mouth piece.

“Lady and gentleman, if we’re done gossiping about my pigtails, this is an official government line that we should probably keep clear in case someone needs us to actually do our _job_.” It’s Jack’s annoyed voice number nine, the one that says he’s feeling left out of the joke so everyone should go be productive. He’s off the line again before Ianto can make his suddenly dry throat open enough to speak.

“He’s right. Best not to get you in trouble with him. Thanks Tosh.”

“Bye Ianto.” Thumbing off the phone, Ianto takes another drag off his cigarette and re-prioritizes some of his lists in his head.

***

Shopping eats his day in a way that time hasn’t seemed to move for him in a long time. Staring at paint chips trying to match the red of the bar to cover over the sea green of the built in bookcases makes him decide he’d rather use red and black spray paint and shellac like the bar itself. Spray paint is within spitting distance of lighting and the bulb in his bedroom doesn’t have a cover. A walk past framing reminds him that his walls are still bare, all his photos still boxed and scattered across the living room floor. Hangers and extra frames join the steadily growing pile and before he’s made it to the queue he’s somehow accumulated two hanging ferns and something large and lushly green that’s just barely going to fit in the foot well of the backseat if he jams the passenger seat all the way forward. He just hopes this rush of vigor lasts long enough to finish everything he seems to be starting.

The home goods store is no better. A quick stop for new bar stools to be delivered has ended up somehow across town at a small independent book store loading unframed art from a local artist he’s never heard of into the rear of the car. Groceries goes much more according to plan. In and out with list in hand and almost more than he can cram in his trunk.

Ianto is on his third trip back up to his door from the car with an arm full of things before he begins to regret his overwhelming urge to power clean.

“You’re gonna have calves that can walk a Victoria Secret fashion show if you keep that up.” Kai is hanging half out his door, shirt fire engine red with a submachine gun on the front above the words Zombie repellent.

“I _already_ have calves that can walk a Victoria Secret fashion show. If you’re gonna take the piss you can do it with an arm full of shit. Take one of these bloody ferns I’m dangling before I trip over the damn things.”

“Ferns?” Kai steps out of his doorway, grabbing both from where their hooks were hanging from Ianto’s rapidly numbing fingers.

“Fucked if I know why. They just looked cheerful. I could use a little extra of that around sometimes.”

“More power to ya then mate. Lay on McDuff.”

***

It takes another four trips by both of them before Ianto is closing the door wearily behind him. Kai has totally earned the bowl they’re about to pack.

“So what’s up with the massive influx of odds and ends, if I may be so bold?” Kai flops down into the patched chair, absurdly long legs dangling over the arm, as Ianto fetches the weed tin to drop in his lap. He begins putting things away as he speaks.

“Just looked around this morning and hated every cluttered, mismatched, bare inch of the place. Then looked in my fridge before remembering that I’ve been living off booze for weeks now. I dunno, I just couldn’t do it any more. Lisa would have read me the riot act if she’d seen the state of this place, you know? The state of me.” His hand hovers over the beers before he flicks his eyes up at the clock. It’s a quarter to five, the most respectable hour he’s waited for in weeks. “Drink?”

“Please and thank you. So, you’re planning on getting baked and scrubbing, huh? Is there anything more soothing than cleaning high?” Ianto snorts as he pops the cap off the beers, passing one to Kai before straddling one of the kitchen chairs.

“You’re like, professionally stoned, aren’t you?”

“Pretty much, yeah.” The blond grins widely before lighting the glass bowl. “Sometimes life can be really good.” His words escape on curls of blue-grey smoke that twist around his head.

“Yeah,” He digs a lighter out of his pocket. “I think I’m starting to remember that.”

***

Even with every window and the sliding glass doors open the entire flat reeks of spray paint and bleach. The bookcase looks great, black on the outside in addition to the edges, red on the inside walls and there are red as well as black accent squares where he intends on hanging his photos still outlined with blue painters tape. The plumbing in the bathroom in shining, the floors are all mopped and Ianto is flopped across the couch eating dinner with dirt still on his hands.

It’s shocking how good he feels. The stir-fry he didn’t want even as he made it is delicious now that he’s eating it. Spicy with extra chicken and peas but not a single water chestnut to be seen. The plate is balanced on one thigh of his crossed legs, the other supporting his notebook as Ianto trades off between bites of dinner and working on his list for the next day.

“Should make room for laundry tomorrow.” As opposed to running out of clean sheets when Cheyenne is back in town. He jots it down underneath unpack/hang photos, unpack books, and wax floors. He’d forgotten just how good it makes him feel to have a clear list of goals to achieve for the day.

His plate almost slips off his lap and onto the floor when the phone rings, startling him.

“Ianto Jones.”

“Well that’s a very formal way of answering. You sound better today.” Cheyenne however sounds flustered and a bit distracted.

“I feel better today. A lot better than I’ve felt in a while. I took your advice about unpacking the flat. I’ve been scrubbing, sweeping, cooking, shopping, and painting since I woke up. Also, I am no longer the shamed owner of a sea green set of bookcases.” The laugh that comes over the line seems genuine if somewhat strained.

“Well that’s good, because I wasn’t going to say anything but that was the ugliest paintjob I had ever seen.”

“Well now they’re black and red. What’s the matter? You sound strung out.” She sighs into the phone as Ianto tucks it between his ear and shoulder to take his dishes to the sink.

“I am, a bit. My client is a tricky old coot who has replaced the entire middle section of text with a different section from a different source. Like the cake recipe trick when you’re padding an English paper? So long complaint made short, he’s _doubled_ my work as a test because I don’t have the correct sources to make sure I’m using the proper variation of certain words. This is the reason multi-use words like virgin get corrupted.” There’s a growl to he words, but under it Ianto can hear a hint of smugness.

“But you think you have the right one I take it?” Never has he missed his ear set as much as now, trying to keep the tiny mobile against his ear while washing up.

“I better, because apparently this is the portion of the test that bombed the last four people who applied for the position. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t even want to _look_ at the fucking thing. Tell me about your day of exorcism by bleach instead.”

“You want me to tell you about mopping?” He laughs and almost drops the phone into the sink.

“Less mopping more shopping. I am such a relaxation shopper that hearing about other people buying things is soothing. What did you buy?”

“A lot, and yet so little. I’ve got bar stools coming in tomorrow. Oh! And I have ferns. Two of the hanging kind and a big potted one. Um, spray paint, some art that was on the gallery wall at a bookstore I passed and some groceries. Thought we could try the whole dinner thing again without the burnt chicken and spiders.”

“That sounds nice. What’s the spray paint for?”

It’s nice. It’s _normal_ , puttering around the flat, phone to his ear as he rambles on about his day to the girl on the other end. She teases him about the edibility of the dinner he just ate, he mocks the apparently awful food she keeps being served as he turns out the lights and locks the doors and by the time he’s flopped down onto his bed in the dark Cheyenne is giggling and snorting down the line.

“So, about these really ugly pajamas you were telling me about? I think I need to see them.”

“Not a chance sunshine. These things are too ugly to be seen by any eyes other than mine. Note how I haven’t asked to see what you sleep in?”

“Always glad to share. Hold on.” Before she can protest Ianto has dropped the phone next to himself on the bed as he wiggles out of his dirty paint stained clothes and kicks the closet door closed so that he can see himself in the full length mirror along the back. He’s lost weight, almost more than he could stand to. Still he tosses a corner of the sheet half across his lap and grins at the mirror, snapping a picture of his reflection and texting it before he can change his mind. “There you go, any second now.”

“Wow. You send me personal porn and want a shot of the libido killer in return?” There’s rustling from her end of the phone. “What if I say I need less than a sheet to convince me to share my shame?”

“I’d say you can have it. _After_ I see pajamas worth all the build up. Come on, are you gonna make me beg? You’re going to make me say please, aren’t you?”

“Hold your horses, you’ve won. Give me a minute and for your own safety, don’t have anything in your mouth when it comes through.” He can hear the shutter sound of the phone as he sets it to speaker and waits for the text to come through.

They are exactly as hideous as Cheyenne promised. Easily big enough for two more girls her size, the knotted drawstring dangles almost to her knees and her feet are lost under huge folds of fabric as they seem to be made for someone at least a foot taller than herself as well. The best thing about the pattern of florescent hunters orange plaid over a crayon bright violet polyester fleece is that it’s so folded in on itself by all the gathering of the massive pile of fabric that he can’t see more than bits of it at once. It’s so ugly in fact that Ianto has stared aghast at the picture for almost a minute before he notices the tight hot pink tee shirt above it loudly advertising MTV Raps in checkerboard script.

“Oh. That is…” He laughs. “I don’t have words. You know, you have to have pretty great taste to be able to pick out something that offends the eyes so thoroughly on every level like that. I think I almost love these for how ugly they are. Like French bulldogs. Those are the French bullies of sleepwear.” Apparently this was the correct reaction. Cheyenne is snorting away on the other end.

“That’s how I feel! You haven’t even seen the best part. Wait for it.” The phone makes clattering sounds for several seconds before a new picture pops up that makes Ianto very glad he heeded her advice to not drink, smoke, or swallow.

She’s grinning at him from inside one leg of the pants. The drawstring waist is up so high that it rests against the curve of her shoulders, the hem swinging around her calves. Another picture has come in before Ianto stops gawking at ridiculousness of the situation and refocused his eyes on the curves of her shoulder. The uncovered curves, pink tee shirt crumpled next to bare feet. He almost disconnects the call in his haste to get to the next picture waiting in his inbox. She got the pajamas off and stretched full width between both hands. They’re so large it’s only through the gap between the tent like legs that shows the long nude line of her side and hip.

“You’re right. They’re awful. You should leave them off and then send me a picture just so I can make sure you haven’t been tempted by the siren song of orange plaid.”

“I think that sounds…shit is that the time?” The purr in Cheyenne’s voice is wiped away by shock. “ _Shit_! I’ve been on the phone like twice as long as I meant to. More than that.” That heart breaking sound from her room is very obviously the sound of clothes being put on much quicker than they were removed. “Look, I gotta go or I’m gonna get behind on my work and start making stupid mistakes before I’ve finished.” If cocks could pout, his would, even as the rest of Ianto understands completely.

“No, I empathize completely with crunch time. Before you go though, do you want a ride from the train station when you get back in town?”

“That’s awesome. Thanks. I’ll text you sometime tomorrow with the pick up time, okay? Night Ianto!”

There’s nothing to do but chuckle as the line disconnects on muffled curses before he can open his mouth.

“Night Chy.”

***

It takes less than five minutes for his dick to convince his brain that there’s nothing remotely ridiculous about rubbing one out to a couple inches of bare skin behind a curtain of hideous micro fleece with a camera in his bedroom.

***

It’s a good thing it’s laundry day because Ianto comes awake to find he fell asleep while trying to convince himself to get out of bed and clean up and now the sheet is stuck to his stomach. Ianto peels it back with a grimace, scratching at the flaking mess dried to his skin.

“Gross.” Briefly he debates the merits of putting clean underwear on over the mess versus the amount of ammunition making the bed naked would give the team before cleanliness wins out. Stripping the bed as quickly as he can, Ianto tosses the mess out into the living room on his way to the shower. Since the damage of doing naked laundry is already done he hauls the hamper out of the bathroom and dumps it on top of the sheets before hopping under the clanking pipes.

There’s no mail again and already he’s regretting telling Jack to hold it all at the Hub. He’s got bills coming due, a rolling stone he doesn’t want to have to pick up at the newsstand, and his weekly letter from Rhiannon that he’s waiting on. Shimmying back into his battered jeans from yesterday Ianto regrets having forgotten to get his hair cut yesterday as thick chunks of it keep breaking free from the rest to flip forward and swing just at the very edge of his sight.

He’s got to get that haircut today.

After breakfast.

***

After breakfast turns into after making sure the book cases are dry. Since they are, Ianto decides to unpack a few boxes of books and photos. The photos on the shelves look odd without the ones of his family on the walls. Before he knows it, the day has flown past and he’s sitting alone in the Laundromat flipping through a magazine two years out of date while his clothes tumble hypnotically in three large driers. It’s after six and he’s perched on a folding table eating a Mars bar, and he completely forgotten to even call his barber again.

“Hey, I’m turning to the news unless you’re watching this.” The man behind the glass plate window is gesturing towards a rerun of Coupling playing on the tiny ancient television bolted to the wall.

“Yeah, go ahead.” He gestures towards the dryer bank with the stump of his candy bar just as the first one buzzes. “Not even listening anyway. just folding.”

He’s folded the entire batch of whites and is halfway through colors when the words ‘gunshots’ catches his attention.

“Hey, turn that up please?” The volume increases several notches and he lets his hands work automatically as he watches the anchorwoman on the screen give out sketchy information about a series of gunshots reported from the warehouse district early in the morning. “Did she already say where in the warehouse block?”

“Do I look like a paper to you?” This is why he normally uses the Langs’ Laundromat across town where he has Jack’s dry cleaning done. Ignoring the urge to smack against the plate glass, Ianto digs into his pocket and pulls out his phone, staring blankly at his contacts before sending one quick message to Tosh’s Torchwood line.

::Saw news, exchange of fire by docks?::

It’s half an hour and he’s folded the rest of his clothes and all his bedding as well before the reply comes back, just one short word.

 _::working::_

It’s enough to reassure him the team is alive if nothing else and not in dire enough straits to summon him back. It’s also no where near enough information, just enough to make him rush through bagging his clothes and heading home. Ianto finds himself missing the weight of his gun keenly and listening for his official ring tone the entire ride home.

***

He knows almost none of the songs from Cheyenne’s version of Guitar Hero which makes it perfect to distract himself since every surface in his flat is sparkling clean and he’s still waiting for a call or text from anyone to tell him everything’s all right. Cliffs of Dover is kicking his ass thoroughly when the phone finally rings.

“Tosh?”

“Chy. What’s wrong?”

“Just work again. I hate your Guitar Hero games. Tiny pixel people are booing me as we speak but my band name is awesome. Seventeen Left Shoes.”

“Your fake band name is Seventeen Left Shoes? I love it. Very punk. So, other than butchering Cliffs of Dover, what have you been up to?” He is killing it, tiny cgi beer bottles are showering the stage as the words ‘you fail’ wobble across the screen.

“More cleaning. Waxed my floors, did laundry. Just stuff. What about you? Finish everything up all right?”

“Yeah. It took me a bit, turns out the piece in the middle was actually part of a fifteenth century Ghazal, it’s a kind of sung poetry. A long part. It was bananas. But I’m done now. I’m done and feeling as good as I’m going to until I set it into the PA’s hand on my way out the door tomorrow.”

“And what time is that?” He sets the plastic guitar down in disgust and swaps his tv over to a different input channel where the wii is plugged in. “Since someone forgot to text me the details. Mario kart or Zelda?”

“Mario kart. Easier to play on the phone.” Gives him an excuse to build a mii as well which according to Mica is the best thing about the Wii. “And in my defense, Ghazal. Just saying. My schedule has me back in Cardiff by two.”

“Good. I’ll pick you up, drop you off at the Royal and dinner will be at six-ish?”

“Six sounds fantastic. I’m kind of looking forward to checking out the new ferns.”

“Don’t mock my ferns. They’re sensitive you know.” She makes a rude noise directly in his ear.

“Mythbusters says you’re full of it, all though apparently playing heavy metal is better for plants than classical.” A tiny bobble-headed cartoon of himself flails as he uses the pointer to dangle it above the ground.

“Huh. So jumping away from my apparently insensitive metal head flora and back to dinner, how do you feel about fish and chips?”

“It’s hard for me to feel anything but benevolent towards fried food.” Ianto power mashes buttons through the intro credits. “Pick your racer yet?”

“Yep. I’m a ghost in a Caddy. So did you spend all day working?”

Slumping back into the couch, Ianto laps the track with King Boo and listens to Cheyenne tell him about soggy baked sole, the guest room she’s staying in, and swears long and colorfully when baby Mario squeezes past him to take first place on the second race in a row.

“So, dare I ask how Jack’s doing?” His fingers convulse on the remote and trigger both his speed boost and his brakes simultaneously, skidding him off a bouncy mushroom to his doom.

“I’d rather you not.” A little guy on a cloud drops him back onto the race track in ninth place. She’s silent on her end of the phone as he tries to power back into position on the straightaway. “We had a fight, the day you left. It was rather epic, in an ‘I cried like a girl and cursed like a sailor and he kept looking at me like I was kicking him in the balls’ kinda way.”

“Should I not point out how it was very obviously necessary?” At least she has the grace not to sound smug. He’s back up to second place but baby Mario is staying just a half length ahead in his stupid little pushchair.

“It would be appreciated greatly by the management. It’s just fucking awkward, and not even because he’s my boss. I thought I knew what I wanted. I wanted Jack sorry. If Jack was sorry, and meant it, then I thought I’d feel better instead of just feeling like a twat because I’m the one who should have been apologizing.” He’s still firmly in second place as the purple car takes its place at the start line of the final course. “And despite all that I still do feel better anyway.”

“Of course you do, because you really did need to hear what he had to say, even if it was an apology that makes you feel like a dick for wanting it. So I take it he hasn’t been by since?”

“All silent on the work front since yesterday morning. I asked him to stay away for a while until I can kind of get my head around all of this. Like the past three weeks I haven’t been thinking about it, just feeling it, and now I have to figure out how to actually live with it.”

“Yeah, well, that’s the hard part. Sometimes I still wake up and have to tell myself to get out of bed and breathe in and out all day long. And then one day I find I haven’t had to tell myself to breathe in and out. And then sometimes I go weeks at a time without thinking about, you know, everything. But, now that you’re on this side of it, the part where you can actually string two thoughts around how much it hurts, it’ll get better.”

“I’ll take your word for it. Still trying to master the breathe in and out part.” He’s come in first at some point but it’s not as fun as it should be. “I was right asking Jack to give me some space to take it in. I know I was Chy. It’s helping. I just don’t know how to fit that in with how wrong I’ve been about a lot of stuff.”

“Let me give you some selfish advice my mother in law gave me when I started getting functional again. _You first_. Ianto needs to be the only thing you’re deliberately thinking about for a few more days. You go back to work in a week or so, right? You’ll have to think about whatever it is you do then and it’s gonna blow. So make sure you’ve mastered just getting through the day before then. If he’s willing to give you the space, take it. Don’t rush it.”

***

There’s still no mail when Ianto roll out of bed late the next morning. No texts from the team either. He tries not to worry, knows that sometimes cases come in hot enough to keep them all running on caffeine and non-terrestrial stimulants for forty-eight hours stretches or more and that was without being a man down and one member green, but if he hasn’t heard anything from anyone by five Ianto is texting Jack.

Even dragging out everything his morning routine and spending ten minutes debating jacket over tee and jeans or not, he’s still at the station fifteen minutes early. He parks in the garage and frowns when every hair on his body tries to stand up at once, as if a goose had walked over his grave. The butterfly knife from his center console is gone, but the telescoping steel baton is still there. Ianto palms it quickly, glad he decided on the jacket after all as he tucks it into his back pocket. The disquiet continues to creep up his spine as he stops at a kiosk for coffee.

Something is very definitely watching him.

He pushes into a crush of people rushing across the station for transfers, sliding through crowds and smaller groups until he can put his back to a support running from ceiling to floor, weight balanced on the balls of his feet and hand resting in his back pocket so that the spring loaded solid steel bar rests firmly in his palm. The lid is off his coffee as he sips it, ready to be thrown, eyes tracking the length of the concourse around him.

“Ianto!” Cheyenne is coming up the escalator, hair swept back out of her face and curls weighted into submission with sunglasses on top of her hair and a smart black suit. He grins at her, stepping slightly to the left to settle his mostly full coffee atop a newspaper machine within easy reach and using the cover of his jacketed back to the wall to slip the baton up his sleeve. Her lips are slightly pinked and shimmering as she lets go of her pull behind and twists her arm up around his neck, kissing him deeply. Ianto keeps his eyes open, even as he cups the back of her head to kiss her back, just fingertips pressed to the small of her back in case he has to move.

“Ready to go?” He scans the concourse one more time before looking her in the eye. Her gaze searches him, a tilt to her brow before he takes her garment bag, draping it over his weapon arm and wrapping his free hand around her waist.

“Yes. Are you okay?”

“Had one of those skin crawling moments for a minute there.” It’s a misdirection at best, but it’s always paramount to keep your story as close to the truth as possible when distracted and if Cheyenne notices he keeps them as close to the center of crowds as he can on the walk back to the car park she never so much as falters in her description of the trip until he’s got them out of the garage and back onto the road.

“Okay, seriously. I was married to an active duty soldier for ten years Ianto. I know what looking for trouble looks like. What’s going on?”

“Probably nothing. Everyone is just out of contact and it’s probably just making me paranoid, but,”

“But?”

“But I think I’d feel better taking you back to mine instead of back to the hotel. Just until I know what’s going on.” In the passenger seat Cheyenne stares at him, eyes narrowed and knuckles brushing her lips.

“Okay, Ianto this is fucked up. Now I really need to know you’re not a dealer of some kind. I need you to actually say the words ‘you are not about to get caught in a drug war Cheyenne’ out loud.”

“You’re not about to get caught in a drug war, Cheyenne.” He parrots, eyes flickering to the rearview as he drives.

“Sorry, I should have been more specific. I need more information than that. What the fuck do you do at twenty-frickin-three that explains the weird shit I’ve been ignoring?!” His hands clench around the steering wheel. There is no way this is going to end well. The best thing he can hope for is that Jack finds this both humorous and vague enough to let slide.

“I work for her Majesty’s government.” Next to him Cheyenne snarls a long lyrical sound of something foreign and most likely unflattering, her head thumping against the window.

“I knew it. I fucking knew it. A spy kiddo? You’re actually a fucking spy, or spook, or whatever the fuck you call them over here?” Her voice is dry over a tremble of incipient hysteria. Ianto blinks twice as he jerks the car into his parking space, taking a deep breath.

“I work for her Majesty’s government.” All he can do is repeat the standard line they tend to reserve for out of town cops unfamiliar with Torchwood.

“Okay. All right.” She’s staring out the window as she takes a deep breath. “I’m coming up, Ianto, because you’ve played this really straight with me since I met you and you were upfront and honest about not being able to tell me about a lot of things. But when whatever is going on is done, I’m going to need…something here. Savvy?”

“I’ll do what I can. Come on.”

***

“Ianto!” He’s in the bathroom, phone to his ear listening with increasing desperation to the endless ringing of Jack’s mobile when Cheyenne calls him, her voice tight with panic and a strangled calm that has every nerve in his body strung out immediately. Sharp edged adrenaline dumps through him leaving a cold trail up his spine as Ianto reaches into the medicine cabinet and flicking open his straight razor as he eases the door open. The open room beyond looks clear at first glance, no one visible except Cheyenne, staring steely eyed at his television, face pale and mouth trembling as she calls his name again in that same throttled tone. “Ianto, there’s a moray eel on your tv asking for you.”

He makes no move to hide the bare blade in his hand, closing his expression back into the far too familiar cool eyed mask he’s worn for months as he steps around the corner and plants his feet shoulder width apart in front of the television. The creature on his screen is larger than Ianto thought it would be from the partial file he’d been able to access from Cheyenne’s ipod. It’s massive head, grooved and domed, is dark under the spattering of pale spots. Flat black eyes follow his movements from over a huge snarling snout filled with rows of curved needle like teeth and even though it’s body is upright and bipedal it manages to look nothing at all like a human.

“Ianto Jones of Torchwood?” Over his sound system he can hear a wet clicking under the flat metallic echo of a translator.

“I am. Who are you and what do you want?” His guts are a tight frozen lump as he stares just over the somewhat shoulder of the creature sitting at what is obviously the conference room of the Hub. Cheyenne is thankfully silent behind him.

“I am,” It makes a noise that he can’t quite grasp, even with the help of the translator programs. “I come to you as a representative of my ship with the most peaceable of intentions. Several,” The computer translates the sound as time units “ago, our scouting ship was damaged when we were pulled into a temporal-spatial event. We are simply trying to retrieve a part from our scout ship so we can leave. Members of my party however, have caused tensions between my crew and your agency.” It folds too long hands with not enough fingers but too many joints, in front of that snarling face in what Ianto assumes is supposed to be a reassuring pose. “We regret to inform you that we were forced, in the name of keeping the peace of course, to occupy your base and subdue your companions.”

“Of course. Should I take it as understood that we possess the missing part that you need?” His palms are sweating as the thing smiles.

“This is a most unfortunate truth. It is also an unfortunate truth that from what I have been able to gather you are the only person who can give me access to the portion of your stores where it is being housed.” Ianto forces his knees to stay locked as they try to turn to water. They want the secure archive codes, and if they’ve tracked him down by the cctv for it, then something has happened to Jack.

“You understand that here on my planet taking control of someone’s center of operations and the staff is considered a hostile action, correct?” The thing gives him another of those frightening gape mouthed smiles.

“A regrettable misunderstanding. As was the death of your leader. Attacked us from behind, may I add, and stuck himself on a venom spine.” A small whine escapes Cheyenne’s throat and Ianto forces himself to breathe through the sudden slit throat pain of having Jack’s loss shoved in his face like that. “Let me broker a peace. We simply want to leave. We will trade the remaining members of your operation and your base for the part that we require, and as a token of good faith let us return the body of your commander to you to do with in the traditions of your kind. We will bring it to the empty building by the water where the conflict began at the start of darkness. If you collect it, we will assume you agree to our conditions. I will see you soon.”  
The television flickers once before flashing back to it’s previous screen, baby Peach sitting abandoned in the middle of a rainbow racetrack in a ducky shaped cart.

“Fuck.”

“Ianto. A giant talking eel just made me lose my video game.” Cheyenne grabs his wrist in a tight grip, dragging his eyes down to her stony face and far to reasonable tone of voice. “An alien eel, Ianto.” Now her face begins to crumple into hurt confusion as she bites the corner of her lip. “Torchwood? Of all the random crazy shit you had to be involved in, you had to be freakin Torchwood?”

Of course. Because his day couldn’t be any worse.

“What do you know about Torchwood and aliens Cheyenne?” His voice rasps out of a dry throat. “Have you been lying to me?”

“No. No, I haven’t lied. I only know about you by reputation, mostly bad.” He notices that she’s careful to keep one hand on his wrist, the other carefully in his sight. “I promise, I’ve only told you one lie about me. James wasn’t a marine when he died. He was a communications officer for an adjunct branch of Homeland securities.”

Nope, he was wrong. This is worse.

“Oh, please say you’re lying.” He snatches his hand back, staggering slightly as he crosses the room to her jewelry box, still on his side table. Wrenching it open, Ianto flips carefully through the small piles of photos and papers at the bottom before fishing out a battered passport and opening it slowly, looking closely at the insignia pin on the jacket of the blonde man. “Really, Cheyenne? Really?!” He shakes the passport at her. “You’re not a Marines’ widow. You’re a SHIELD widow.”  
***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: I normally wouldn't put this at the end of a chapter, but after discussion with someone who saw the end, I feel I should clarify something. Despite the use of the organization name SHIELD, this is not in anyway a Marvel crossover. It's a nod to a long running joke among some friends that if America had a department that was the direct mirror of Torchwood, it would be full of the kind of guys who would rename it shield and stick it under the department of homeland security. P.S. I mentioned SHIELD by name like three times before this. Did anyone see it coming?


	11. Chapter 11

“First things first, killing the sound on the camera feed. They’re in our base which means they have access to the every camera in here.” Ianto refuses to allow his hands to tremble the way they want to, forcing himself to think past the swirl of numbing panic. “I have a toolbox under the sink. Grab it for me.” Cheyenne nods, running for the kitchen as Ianto climbs up onto the counter next to the stove, turning the camera mounted there to the side as the heavy red metal box is deposited with a clang next to his feet. “Hand me a wire stripper and the smallest phillips head in there.” She’s silent next to him, hand resting lightly on his calf as he cracks into the casing and begins a quick and dirty patch job on the wires and he’s not a praying man but it would be awfully nice to have backup on this right now because there’s a hint of a plan forming but if this doesn’t go off right they don’t have a chance.

She trails behind him, handing him tools and steadying whatever he’s climbing onto as Ianto races to finish altering all eight cameras before the surprise he’s added to the first one kicks over. They have just over a minute according to his mental countdown as he patches the last wires together.

“Grab your purse because as soon as I’m done, we’re out the door.” The wires twist together under his fingers and Cheyenne has her laptop bag over her shoulder as he hops down and takes her by the arm, hustling her out the door quickly and stopping her at the head of the stairs with a hand pressed lightly over her mouth and a restraining grip to her shoulder. Her eyes are huge but she nods and stands perfectly still next to him as he adds thirty extra seconds to the count in his head before pushing the door back open slowly. On the chimney stack the red light that’s been monitoring his every move for months is amber, as are the others he can see from his vantage point.

“All right, I patched the live feed back into the local memory so it’s going to play about eight hours of empty flat from yesterday before I walk back in the door. It’s thinking room at least.”

“Okay, so let’s think then. What are we doing now?” She’s not looking at him as she speaks, digging into her luggage as she speaks and pulling out jeans.

“We aren’t doing anything. _I_ am trying to figure out where I’m stashing _you_ long enough to…”

“To fuck off and get killed because you’re outnumbered by huge fucking eel people? Not today kiddo.” She’s shimmying out of and into clothing as she speaks. “You’re not really going to try and tell me you don’t need an extra set of hands, are you?”

“Of course I do!” He’s shouting and he knows it.

“Good, cause unlike over here, guns are plentiful and well loved in my neck of the woods and I've been hunting since I was eight years old. They aren’t deer, but the beauty of guns is that the theory is the same no matter what you’re shooting at.” Ianto forces himself not to grab Cheyenne by the arm as she walks past him and shake her until she comes to her sense and runs screaming from the flat, walking instead to his junk drawer and fishing out a keyring full of old unused keys. “So, again, what are we doing Ianto?”

“Well, first we’re arming up I guess.” He can’t stop his mouth from quirking into a twisted little half smile. “At least I won’t have to explain _this_ to Jack. Grab your laptop, I’m going to need it.”

Of all his hiding places, this is the one Ianto worried the most about Jack finding. The one that would have been the most damning. Cheyenne follows him silently out of the flat and down the stairs to the door across from Kai’s as he flips to the key labeled ‘mum’s house’ and slides it into the lock, opening the door and rushing her into the gloomy living room filled with musty second and third hand furniture.

“You rent the apartment under you as well?” Her voice is soft as Ianto crosses to the back bedroom in rapid strides.

“Nope. Don’t pay a cent for it. I make it look like someone else has rented it on paper. I needed a fallback position.” He flips the lights on and opens the top drawer of the dresser against the wall, ignoring her baffled look as she glances around the room. There’s a camp bed against the far wall, a dresser next to the door, and on the walls are all of the surveillance photos and schedules of the team that he had taken and mapped out during his first weeks back in Cardiff. From the open drawer Ianto removes a handgun and loads it quickly, snapping the magazine in and thumbing the safety on before handing it to her.

“A fall back position? Ianto, this seems kind of weird, even for an alien hunter. What is this place for?”

“This was backup plan ‘A’ for if Lisa was found. There’s a bag in the closet. Load it up please?” He strips down out of his jacket, fastening on a holster and securing a SIG below his arm before sliding a clutch piece into the small of his back. When he turns around Cheyenne is shaking her head as she loads shotguns into the black bag.

“So Lisa was Torchwood too then?”

“Yeah, before it killed her. Give me your laptop and then grab a shot gun and keep an eye on the door. Anyone you hear will likely be someone coming to buy a bag from Kai, but just in case. I’ve got to figure out where we’re going from here.” Cheyenne snaps the stock on the nearest weapon open, loading with her eyes on the door as she nudges her bag towards him with her foot. If he couldn’t see the tiny tremors in her hands as she chambers the rounds Ianto would think she was perfectly cool under pressure.

“So, if Torchwood was the big thing between you and Lisa and Jack that you couldn’t tell me about, I know now. Are you going to tell me what happened?” She has one of those huge super light Macs and Ianto settles himself down on the foldaway, body angled towards the door to move instantly.

“You want to do this _now_?” He brings up the backup Torchwood one servers and lets himself through the backdoors with an ease born of practice.

“Yes, I want to do this now. James worked for SHIELD for six years, I’ve known about aliens for five, I even did a civilian consultation once, without ever having to actually _see_ one. I’ve known you a week now and I’m on the run from space eels that don’t even have the decency to lie with believability.”

“You caught that huh?” He’s chewing on his lip, wishing he’d grabbed his cigarettes from upstairs as he tries to slide around the firewall he and Tosh installed and get to the internal cctv network.

“Yeah. My point is, I’m in the shit now, nothing for it, but it’d be nice to know how we got here.”

“ _I don’t know how I got here!_ ” The roar rips out of him, startling them both. Ianto digs his hands into his hair, resting his head in his palms. “I can tell you step for step what happened, but fucked if I know where I’ve dropped the plot, because I still don’t know how I ended up here. I’m a fucking archivist. I’ve worked in the archives since I was twenty in the Torchwood tower at Canary Wharf. I met Lisa in the caf one day and said what the hell, even though she was a P.A up in research and far to hot for me and asked her out. We moved in together. I loved her and then the ghost shifts happened. Did you have them in America?”

“We did, but not as many. None at all in my neighborhood, but I remember when the news started showing these robots and you could hear the people crying as they were marched out of their houses in the city. And James had only been dead a few weeks and I remember being so glad he wasn’t going to be standing between those things and every body else.”

“They came from the tower. They were called Cybermen and we had opened a hole between their universe and ours.” He looks up and Cheyenne is leaning against the doorframe, gun tucked loosely in the crook of her arm and eyes trained on the front door to the flat. “They were bad, scary, but even as they were rounding up staff the rest of us were locking down sections, arming ourselves. Sometimes I wonder if we could have made a stand, just until UNIT and Jack arrived if it was just the Cybermen. Sometimes I think we could have, us in the archives anyway, but we’d been testing this other thing. Some kind of ship, I don’t know. I was _there_ and I don’t fucking _know_ what happened. We had some _thing_ and it was full of monsters. These ridiculous looking things. I saw one on a security feed, looked like little armor plated pepper pot, but it just...killed. It killed everything it saw that wasn’t itself and these two things went to war in the tower with us between them. We never stood a fucking chance. The lucky ones of us died where we stood. The rest of us were herded through the blood and the smoke and plaster to conversion centers. Becca stopped walking, just stood there and screamed, so they killed her in the hall. Just, zapped her. Lisa was there, a line over and just ahead of me, and then she wasn’t because they took her behind a curtain. And that’s when it stopped.”

“Scariest fucking thing I’d ever heard. Sounded like a hurricane blowing through town, but not a single fucking leaf moved.” Her voice is a whisper.

“Someone figured out how to send them back. There were rumors of an alien called the Doctor, ever heard of him?”

“Nope, James’ job, not mine.”

“Well records have him showing up at all the big disasters, so it was just his kind of place. UNIT says it was him, I don’t know. I don’t care. _Someone_ saved us, pulled all of those things back to wherever the fuck they came from. But Lisa had already…they had started changing her. She was half converted and still alive.”

“I am so sorry Ianto.” Her voice breaks as she looks at him for the first time since he started talking. There are tears in her eyes and he can’t bear them.

“I was pretty banged up, but I managed to hide her for days, playing keep away from UNIT patrols looking for survivors. They would have killed her. They killed all the others who were like her. All my codes still worked anywhere there was power, so I started taking things, stocking up. All of these.” He gestures with the gun towards the closet. “Painkillers from the hospital station. It took a week before I could get her out, months before I could get her to the only really safe place for her, somewhere with access to the technology and information that might help me figure out how to save her. She was doing so bad Chy. It always hurt her, I kept her drugged all the time with anything I could get, mostly from Kai. I had to do something. So I hunted down the last branch of Torchwood, Jack’s branch, and I got in. And once I was in, I brought Lisa in. I kept my head down, did their bitch work until they got used to not noticing me, and when I thought Jack was getting a little too interested in why I was around so much, I started sleeping with him.” Ianto looks back at Cheyenne who’s back to staring at the door, face wet.

“Keep going. I can feel the worst still hovering.” He can’t look at her. He turns back to the monitor and finds that he’s in, staring at the autopsy bay.

“Fine. I found someone who could maybe help. A doctor out of Japan. I brought him over, on the company account no less and fudged the charges. I snuck him into our secret fucking base and he gave Lisa back the ability the breathe on her own. He made it possible for her to move, to walk, and as soon as she was free of that fucking life support unit, she started killing. Her programming kicked in and she began trying to convert who she could and kill who she couldn’t. Jack, Gwen, Owen, Tosh, she went after all of us and they had to kill her. After Jack put a gun in my hand and told me to do it and I wouldn’t. So that’s what happened. I’m on probation for almost destroying the world when I should have been executed, Jack killed my girlfriend, and sometimes I was really happy with him, so I lost that too and don’t know who I hate more for that hurting. There. That’s my whole story. That’s why I have a second apartment full of weapons and why I’m actually the bad guy, and why Jack…” His voice breaks. “Oh God, they said they killed Jack.”

“Do you believe them?” Tears are choking thick in Cheyenne’s voice.

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m spying on them.” Different views of the Hub flicker by as Ianto jumps from camera to camera. So far he sees four of the things spread out across the base. Two are in the process of searching his archives, dumping things into piles, one is trying to break into the armory, and one is standing guard over the cell block and Ianto feels his heart skip a beat and then resume pounding at double speed when he skips cameras and sees the rest of the team in separate cells. “Okay, I’ve got four, but they’re scattered on the lower levels. There have to be more, no way no one is watching the main level. No Jack either.”

“I’m going to think that’s a good thing. He’s a big fucking guy and he looks squirrelly. I’d keep dudes on him if I was running a hostile takeover.”

“Less squirrelly and more extremely lethal. Bullet to your brain and a big grin the entire time lethal. If there aren’t guards on him he’s dead or they’re fools, and I don’t think they’re fools.” There it is, just a sliver because there’s only one camera in Jack’s office, but Ianto can see the edge of the trapdoor to Jack’s bunk open behind the desk. “But hopefully he’s not dead yet either. I think they’ve got him under his office.”

“So he’s bait? Cause I gotta tell you, if I was picking bait, I’d pick the tiny lady who’s three feet smaller and a fuck ton lighter than my huge alien eel body and _not_ the huge guy with guns like a battleship.”

“You’d think so. Different species with different cultural norms. Works in our favor once in a great while. Ahh, there we go. Come on you arse-faced fuck, out you come.” Ianto thinks it will be a long time before he watches an ocean documentary again because the sight of that huge rubbery skinned head poking out of the floor, scanning around the hub through the glass walls is making his skin creep. “If Jack’s down there with him, then that’s the last one left. There’s not room for two of those things plus Jack down there.”

“I’m going to use the surety of your statement to take me to a happy place for a moment.”

“Or you could keep watching the door.” He wishes Tosh were here. She’d be setting off emergency lockdowns, separating them all. It’s everything he can do to stay in the system without triggering alarms. “Wait, _what_ happy place?”

“If we don’t get eaten by space eels, I will tell you in great detail afterwards.” She stops, straightening from her slouch and bringing the barrel of her gun level with the door as footsteps echo in the stairwell outside. Ianto stands quickly, cocking his gun as they continue up the stairs to his flat. Sweat beads up along his hairline as the sound of knocking floats down the stairs. He has his finger pressed to his lips before she can do more than part her lips questioningly, moving silently past her to press flat against the wall next to the front door. The grip on the stock brushes against his hair as he breathes deeply listening to a pounding twice more at his door before they descend.

“I’m not carrying them stools back to the fuckin truck. Delivery time was confirmed…” His breath jolts out of him in a shuddery rush as he secures the weapon.

“My bloody bar stools.” Cheyenne slumps back again.

“You know, it just occurred to me. Jack isn’t going to be too pleased about this happening, me knowing, is he?”

“No. No, he’s really not. He’s been very clear since day one, in fact, about how very far I was to make you stay away from this.”

“So, what’s going to happen to me?” The barely restrained sob in her voice forces Ianto away from the wall. Cheyenne lets him pluck the weapons from her grasp, enfolding her in his free arm, gun pointed towards the door even as he brushes his lips across her hair as she begins to cry.

“We, um, we have this drug. We call it retcon. It selectively removes sections of memory without affecting anything else. He’ll, um,” This is so hard. He presses his face to the top of her head, breathing deeply. She smells of coconuts still. “He’ll ask you to take it, give you the choice but it’ll be an act. One way or another, you’re going to lose this memory of this time.”

“But not all of it? Just today right? Not the whole week, right?”

“No.” Ianto squeezes his eyes shut, pressing her closer to him as he lies. “No, not the whole week.”

***

This is the closest thing to a plan Ianto has been able to come up with and he’s pretty sure they’re not going to walk out of it as easy as they walk in.

“Okay, I’m completely serious. Unless the world is ending in a fire fight out there I want you to stay _behind_ the car. I don’t even want you setting up cover fire unless you think it’s the only way.”

“I’ll stay out of the way behind the car unless you look like you’re really in trouble.” She’s got her laptop bag slung over her shoulder and a holster on under her jacket, following him at a dash down the stairs and out into the car. Ianto forces himself to breathe evenly when he has to take his hand off his gun to load the bag in the back and start the car. It’s easier to make himself when she keeps her gun level and held with an easy confidence. Gwen still grips hers like a cartoon copper sometimes. He cranks the engine as she slides into he open door, slamming it shut and lowering her weapon as Ianto whips the car backwards into the road.

“So, probably not the thought to have, but you don’t think they have the second jaw like earth eels, do you?” Her breakdown earlier has melted into a bone deep calm that’s most likely shock. Ianto doesn’t care what it is as long as it keeps her back and steady.

“I’m sorry, have a what? No, never mind. Don’t get stuck thinking they’re like anything on this Earth. They aren’t eels gone wrong. They are something completely and literally alien to you. The only thing I want you thinking about when you look at them is pulling the trigger, okay?”

“Okay.” She’s silent for a moment. “You know you’re the weirdest guy I’ve ever dated, right?” The dry amusement in her voice pulls a smile from him.

“Yeah, I’m not surprised.”

***

He goes over the plan as he drives, letting route memory turn him through back streets. Hours of work and a semi sloppy hack have the internal monitors erasing footage of his car as soon as his license plate is matched. He’s got the floor plan of the warehouse etched into his memory. He’s even kept the laptop plugged into his 4g line so he can keep tabs of the aliens as they dragged a limp grey Jack from the hole under his office. Ianto think’s he’s still breathing, even if it is shallow, but there’s a bloody hole in his shirt where if that thing wasn’t lying, Jack was injected with venom of some kind.

He doesn’t know what to do with this fact, what he can do about it, so he sets it aside.

If he takes his eyes off the road and looks down he can see them, already at the warehouse and setting up their trap. The good news is that it’s not all five things there. The bad news is that there are three of them busily dismantling the fire alarms, Jack slumped still on the floor, propped against a pallet of boxes with his head down.

Ianto tears his eyes away and back onto the road. This isn’t going to work. It’s too simple to work, just showing up early and catching them grouped and under fire. Rescue Jack if at all possible. Probably if not possible. Fall back, plan step two from there.

The boat traffic covers the sound of his engine as Ianto pulls into the loading bay behind the warehouse.

“All right, I want you on the drivers side in case we need to go fast. Keep your eye on the camera feeds. There are three, make sure you know where they are at all times. Don’t let one get out here without you knowing. Be ready to shoot anything that comes out that door and I’ll be ready to duck, understand?” She nods and on the screen the three aliens are all heading back to the place where Jack is dumped. “Ready then?”

“One second.” She grabs him by the hair, crushing her mouth to his in a biting kiss before pulling back almost as violently. “Okay.”

“Okay. Keep your body low behind the door so it provides good cover and keep your eyes on the screens. I’ll be back with Jack. If I’m not,” He holds up a hand sharply as she opens her mouth to protest. “ _If I’m not_ , my phone is here. You drive as fast as you can out of the city and while you’re driving you go in my contacts on my phone. There’s an entry for ‘Uncle Ifan’. Call it. It’ll dial you directly to the UNIT base. Tell them everything. They’ll take care of things and you get the fuck out of town and stay out. You stay out. All right?”

“All right.”

There’s nothing left to say as they swing their doors open in tandem.

***

He’s got a double pump shot gun cradled in his hands as Ianto keeps his back to the shrinkwrap covered stacks of boxes that turn the dimly lit warehouse into a cavernous maze. His fear is gone, drained away in the pounding of his blood and the rush of adrenaline it’s sending through him. He has a chance. It’s all he needs.

Just one clear opening shot. Just one chance.

They’re grouped pretty tightly, two facing towards Jack and one watching the side door. If this isn’t a chance with a sign from god around it’s neck he doesn’t know what is. He braces the stock against his shoulder, breathing in deeply and firing on the exhale, shoulder rolling to absorb the recoil. The top of the massive domed head disappears off the one watching the door in a spray of blackish mist. The body is twisting in on itself in ways that make his gorge rise as it writhes on the floor, but Ianto ignores it, pumping the shotgun and taking a second low in it’s huge fleshy throat, it’s monstrous body spinning back towards Jack as it falls.

He doesn’t have time to think about the fact that Jack hasn’t so much as flinched despite the roar of two blasts of gunfire. The third thing has whirled on him, mouth gaped wide and oh look, Cheyenne was right about the physiology because there’s a secondary set of jaws that are snapping at him like Geiger’s alien.

“Come on you ugly fuck, come fucking get me!” The shot gun isn’t particularly aerodynamic as Ianto hurls it like a javelin but it does the job, distracting the thing long enough for him to draw both guns, backing further into the towering walls of crates. “Come on!”

He turns back into the stacks and runs.

It snarls, a thick thrumming sound as it takes off after him. His footsteps are booming in the cavernous building and the thing behind him breathes in thick wet bellows. In a straight sprint Ianto would out distance it easily but the thing turns and twists like it’s boneless, gaining on him every time he skids around a corner and always seeming to be right where he’s not blindly firing over his shoulder.

He still has a chance. He just has to double back to the loading bay with it’s large clear area. He just needs one long straight sprint, just enough space to stand and fucking _aim_. He still has a chance.

Jack was right about the smoking. There’s a stitch in his side and a burning in his chest as Ianto fires one last blind shot over his shoulder and pushes himself flat out, bursting out of the stacks and past Jack’s body.

He’s spinning to fire when his shoe hits a slick spot of brain matter and he goes down in a winded heap, weapons flying from his hands as he hits the ground hard enough to knock the wind out of him. He’s stunned, unable to force his shaking overworked limbs to move fast enough as the alien bears down on him.

This is how he dies then. On his back gasping for breath and wishing desperately to hear the sound of his engine revving away. He supposes it could be worse than this. Particularly when Jack jerks his head up with a gasp and closes his hand around Ianto’s fallen gun, launching himself off the floor with a roar and onto the back of the creature. There’s blood on his teeth as he brings the weapon up and fires into the snarling head until the thing under him collapses onto the floor.

“Told you it takes more than that to get rid of me.” Ianto scrambles to his feet just in time to catch Jack as he sways, gun hanging slack from the hand not pressed to his side. “Ianto Jones, fancy meeting you here.”

“Well, I’m not one to turn down an engraved invitation Sir.” He slings Jack’s arm around his neck, supporting his weight as they begin moving towards the door where Cheyenne is waiting. “They broadcast into my flat to offer to trade a part from their ship for the lot of you, even though they said you were dead.”

“Yeah, Ugarii venom isn’t all that lethal for me.” Ianto flinches as Jack pulls his hand away from a row of deep gouges that score deeply through his already bloody shirt, ripping across the left half of his chest to end in what look nauseatingly like puncture wounds. “I’m gonna be sicker than a dog for a couple hours though.”

“Well, I hope you have a place the three of us can hide because I emptied out my last bolt hole arming us up and they’re going to be watching my building now.”

“Where did you hide a bolt hole in your building?” Jack doesn’t even sound annoyed, simply resigned as they stagger closer to the door.

“There is no Edna Gellen is 3B.”

“I obviously don’t give you enough to do. Good job on those two thugs.” Ianto feels his blood run cold as he looks over his shoulder at two monstrous bodies on the floor, a burst of energy pouring through him as he starts to run, pulling Jack along as he stumbles.

“There were three. Run!” They’ve almost made the door when the last of the aliens, Ugarii Jack called them, bursts from the stacks with half it’s thick neck blown open into a black and white ruin. It’s bleeding badly, wicked yellow eyes rolling as it stumbles drunkenly and keeps coming. If it weren’t so badly wounded it would have caught them already. They stumble out into full night and the reassuring purr of his engine at the end of the alley, headlights beaming brightly in his face as he manhandles Jack towards it. “Come on, almost there!”

He’s drawn even with the recessed truck bays when twin roars split the air. One from the thing behind them, newly emerged in the alley and from the sound of it’s massive feet barreling towards them at full speed. The other from his car as the headlights as switched over to bright and his sound system begins pounding something with the bass at levels that have his doors rattling and the thing behind him screeching at the top of it’s lungs, a sound that almost covers his engine gunning.

“Oh shit.” He tosses Jack roughly into the recessed bay for the lorries, pressing their bodies tightly into the corner as his Nissan tears past them and connects with the looming alien form. The thing buckles across the hood in a splatter of fluids with a meaty slapping sound and the drivers door slams open. Cheyenne steps out smoothly as it slides wetly onto the ground, barrel of her weapon pointed downwards as she fires over and over again.

“Should I even bother asking?” Jack’s voice is a study in agony and amusement as Ianto levers him back up.

“What, doesn’t everyone meet girls willing to run over alien eels while listening to,” He cocks his head and listens half-heartedly before giving up. “Something very loud? Come on, let’s get you stretched out in backseat. Let me toss the guns in the floorboard first.” Jack falls roughly onto the leather seats and under the dome light Ianto can see the red ruin his shirt is becoming. “Jack…”

“She’s still dry firing. Get her in the car and turn this shit down!” The effort to shout over the music vibrating the interior brings a fleck of blood to the corner of Jack’s mouth. Ianto forces a smile and makes his way around to the drivers side, leaning in long enough to kill the power to the radio.

“You got him. It’s okay Chy, you got him cariad, come on. Give me the gun.” Ianto wraps himself around her slowly from behind, nuzzling at her hair as he eases her trembling arms down slowly towards the mostly pulped mess that used to be a head. From this close he can hear the high pitched whine she’s making in the back of her throat, hands still trying to pull a trigger her fingers are no longer around. “We’ve got to go. Come on.”

He tucks her in the backseat, still silent and quivering, with Jack’s head in her lap.

“Jack’s hurt. Can you keep pressure on it?” Her hands fumble towards Jack until the injured man reaches up and catches her fluttering fingers, pinning them under his against the bloody scores.

“Feel free to think about how much of a dick you occasionally think I am as you press.” Ianto can see the corner of her mouth twitch up as her too rapid blinks are replaced by one long one. “I’m a fan of a little _firm_ handling. Ask Ianto.” The potential of a smile has become a small but true grin as Ianto watches them in the rearview while backing out of the alley at top speed.

“Classy. Normally I’d go there in a heartbeat, but it seems unfair to myself. Having fantasies I won’t remember later. I think I’m kind of looking forward to a little amnesia pill when this is over.” Behind him Jack makes a small grunt as Cheyenne leans down towards him. “But you can’t have my whole week, do you understand Jack?”

“Yes ma’am. Loud and clear. Head out of town Ianto. I’ll give you directions as we get closer. We’re going to ground.”

***

The building is a broken down piece of shit. All the windows are covered with plywood, the lights only work in one room and there’s only one stale smelling mattress on the floor of that room.

“I don’t like sending Cheyenne out for supplies like that.” Jack looks awful as he helps the man struggle into a sitting position. There’s a frightening grey tinge to the thin skin under his eyes and on the insides of his wrist where Ianto is trying to keep up with his racing pulse.

“It’s four blocks, she has the car, she’s armed and the last two aren’t going to abandon the hub to chase down one girl who doesn’t know anything, even if they do manage to accidentally stumble over the right cctv feed at the right time. Now, would you like to tell me why she’s here at all?” There’s no saving Jack’s shirt, so Ianto slits it up the back, peeling him out of the dirty, blood crusted cotton.

“They saw her, Jack. They were watching us at the train station and when they contacted me she was in the living room. What was I supposed to do, leave her unguarded with memories intact under hostile surveillance in my flat?”

“When she gets back…”

“We’re not retconning her Jack. Not yet. We’re outnumbered and she’s _willing_ to help us. After all the weirdness, and everything else, she’s willing to help us and still take the damned retcon after. I could be wrong, but with you poisoned and me exhausted I think we can use all the help we can bloody well get.” Under his palms Jack’s muscles are convulsing where they’re torn.

“We talked about this Ianto, the day you met her. I’m not fighting the Americans over removing knowledge of aliens from their linguist.”

“Yeah, actually I think they’d be pretty pissed if you did. CWO-second class Morgan was not a Marine.” Ianto wonders if he made that same unattractive goggling expression as the pieces clicked in his own head.

“Really?” He nods in response to the incredulous question, swabbing away at the crusted blood with bottled water and paper napkins. “Your getting-past-it girlfriend is affiliated with SHIELD?”

“Yeah.” Jack winces as Ianto pokes roughly at the wounds, looking for signs of clotting as he moves to dump the water directly into the wounds. “I’m starting to think I shouldn’t be allowed to make _any_ kind of relationship decisions. I’m seriously zero for three.”

“Three? Wait, are you counting _me_?” It’s always nice to round out a day of being stalked by aliens, run to ground, and coming clean with a healthy dose of mortification.

“I don’t know. Yeah, I guess I am. I was sleeping with you for six months Jack, I’ve got to call it something.”

“You can call it a distraction Ianto. I’m a big boy, my gossamer fragile feelings can take it.” A scowl tips the corner of his mouth down as Ianto kneads at the muscle, forcing fresh blood to run as he flushes it.

“Look, you may not have noticed this, but I’m pretty close to brilliant Jack. Maybe not as smart as Tosh but I managed to turn my entire life into one long con without ever breaking character. You really don’t think I could have figured out how to distract you without my cock?” A flush heats his ears as it crawls across his face. “After the first couple times anyway? Jesus Jack, you’re still bleeding. What am I supposed to do?”

“Nothing. Just clean it up. I’ll be fine in the morning. Let’s go back to you not having to distract me with your cock.”

“Let’s not. Look, it was…it was good Jack. Not just the sex, you know you’re sex on legs, but when it was just me and you, I wasn’t thinking of anyone else. Not even Lisa, and I needed that. It _counts_. Can we get back to you not dying even though you look like you are.”

“Run in with some alien tech, long ago. If it doesn’t kill me, I’ll get over it. Owen loves it. He sticks band-aids on me and goes drinking.” Jack pulls away from Ianto, flopping back onto the mattress. “I’ve got to retcon her Ianto.”

“I know. Hell, Cheyenne knows. She’s just afraid you’re going to take the whole week.” Ianto swallows roughly, catching Jack’s hand in his. “Please don’t take the entire week, Jack.” Outside a car pulls up and turns off. “I’ve got to go help her get everything in, dig out the bandages so we can take care of this properly.” He lifts Jack’s hand before he can stop himself, pressing the broad palm to his lips. “Don’t die while I’m gone.”

***

Cheyenne is staggering with exhaustion by the time they unload the guns and bags from the car. She’s thought ahead, grabbing throw blankets and tourist tee shirts as well as food and medical supplies.

“Get on the bed with Jack. You can keep him warm.” The looks she shoots him is equally suspicious and grateful.

“I know I look like hammered shit darlin. You don’t have to give me busy work to make me feel okay about sitting down.” Her sneakers hit the floor as the girl kicks them off, climbing onto the mattress and wrapping her arms around Jack anyway.

“How do you know this isn’t all my own clever excuse to get you in a bed and my arms?” Sometimes Ianto wonders what it is about Jack flirting as easily as he breathes that’s so attractive. Cheyenne smirks, even as she cradles his head against her chest, stroking sweaty hair back from his pale face.

“Please. Look at you. You’re all bloody and full of space eel poison, son. I would break you in half.” Under his hands Jack flinches and grits his teeth as Ianto tips alcohol over the wounds, turning his face into the protection of her jacket as he curses. “Come on big guy, nut up. It’s not that bad. ‘Tis a flesh wound and all that jazz.” She cranes her neck and flinches back from the darkening wounds. “Try again when you’re better and I would be thrilled to be the filling in your sandwich.”

“Aww, you’re just saying that because you think I’m going to die.” There’s strain behind the teasing floating voice as Ianto straddles Jack’s lap, padding the wound with gauze before wrapping bandages around the broad chest under his hands.

“You better not. I’ve been indulging in all sorts of utterly filthy fantasies about the two of you for days now that will be forever ruined by your death.” A flush rises high on her cheekbones as Ianto flicks his eyes up to her, eyebrow arched. “ _What_? You’re hot, he’s hot, I went there. A lot. Sue me.” Jack laughs and Ianto can feel Jack’s body shaking with it against the cage of his thighs.

“Oh, you are some kind of special kiddo. Want to stick around for a while? Been decades since we had a linguist on call at the Hub. I can have a visa in the mail for you by noon.” Ianto fumbles the grips for the bandages and keeps his eyes locked on what he’s doing. He can hear the seriousness of the question under the amusement and doesn’t know what the answer he wants to hear is.

“Not a snowballs chance in hell my friend.” She doesn’t even stop to think about it. “I’m not really a ‘chase death down on purpose’ kind of person. In fact, the only reason I didn’t _shit_ earlier is because I’m so scared I’m pretty sure my asshole has sealed itself shut. Not a fucking chance.” Ianto looks up from the closed bandage, already spotting lightly, to see Cheyenne looking at him with apologetic eyes. “If I wanted all of this, I could have had it already. So, thank you but no.” The corner of her mouth quirks up as she continues to stroke Jack’s hair, wiping away the sheen on sweat from his forehead. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”

“I’ll be fine.” Jack doesn’t open his eyes, stays sprawled limp under Ianto and half in Cheyenne’s lap. His hands are cold as he wraps one around the bony curve of Ianto’s ankle, thumb rubbing slowly across the ridges and juts. “Trust me kiddos, I’ll be okay by morning. Just need to rest.”

“I think you’re lying Jack.” He can’t stop the words from tumbling out.

“If I’m right, do I get my sandwich?” He rolls his head heavily towards Ianto, forcing open blue eye that looks dazed and dull and Ianto forces down a dizzying spiral of pain.

“If you’re still here in the morning Jack, you can be in the _middle_.” Jack grins at him, letting his eyes ease shut.

“It would serve you right if I held you to that. Lay down, Ianto. Get your rest while you can. We’re safe here.”

“Of course Sir. Just have to make a quick call first.” Cheyenne looks questioningly up at him as he stands and he has to shake his head. Jack may have barely survived a first dose of venom at the Hub, but he’s not coming back from this. She nods and leans down, her mouth moving next to Jack’s ear, whispering something too soft for Ianto to hear. From the smile still on Jack’s face it’s probably filthy.

Turning his back on the blood stained mattress, Ianto walks out of the grey peeling room lit by the stingy light of one forty watt bulb and into the darkness of the hallway, fingers dialing by route.

He’s settled himself on the top of the black stairwell before the phone in Jack’s office is lifted.

“Now, let’s try this again. I don’t appreciate you kidnapping my team mates. I don’t appreciate you holding my base captive. I’m not pleased that you sent three of your crew to ambush me.” He’s having a hard time controlling the volume of his voice. “And I am most _assuredly_ unimpressed that Jack is dying. This is your one chance to take what remains of your crew and walk away. You touch so much as one hair on my friends down in those cells, leave so much as one fresh bruise and I will wreck you. I will show you the human _definition_ of rage and ruin. You’re outnumbered and outclassed. Run while you can.” Disconnecting the line before the thing on the other end can do more than breathe wetly at him in response, Ianto drops his head between his splayed knees, laces his hands behind his neck and tries to remember how to breathe.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to czarina_kitty who agreed to beta a massively huge unfinished piece and started with this chapter.

He’s nodded off sitting up, back against the wall and gun in hand, Jack tucked pale and shivering in the circle of Cheyenne’s arms and pressed between them. He almost shoots the closed door jerking awake as she smacks his arm desperately.

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, I think he’s dead, please wake up, cause I can’t find a fucking pulse! Wake up!” His arm is numb as Ianto yanks it from under their combined weight, fumbling for the soft flesh of Jack’s throat. It’s cool, but not cold and he clings to that thought with every shred of control he has as he tries to find the gentle throbbing of blood rushing under skin with tingling fingertips.

“I don’t…I don’t know, I can’t feel anything, my arm is numb! It’s here, press _here_.” Ianto sets the handgun down carefully on the floor next to himself and scrabbles for her hand in the dark, pressing her fingertips next to his. “Press there, not too hard. That’s where it should be.” Only the too quick shuddery sound of her breath breaks the darkness. “Cheyenne!”

“I don’t know! I thought I felt something…” Her scream is shrill and quickly cut off as Jack gasps for a deep rattling breath between them and sits up with a jolt. Ianto rolls off the bed, grabbing his SIG even as he dives for the light.

“Shh, it’s okay. I’m going to move my hand…Jesus Ianto!” On the bed the two of them are wincing back from the sudden light of the bare bulb. Jack is sitting upright, palm wrapped across Cheyenne’s mouth as he blinks testily over towards the door. “Little warning would be nice. Can you not scream if I move my hand?” Her eyes narrow and before Ianto can force a warning sound from his dry throat Jack curses sharply and yanks his hand back. Briefly he can see the shallow imprint of her teeth in the heel of Jack’s palm before the other man has his own mouth against the same spot, sucking at the sore flesh and complaining around it. “Ow! You bit me!”

“You son of a bitch! We thought, damnit you looked…no. No, you know what, fuck you!” Her hair is a tangled mess half in her eyes and not quite covering the seam imprint on her cheek as Cheyenne stumbles to her feet and stomps barefooted across the dirty wooden floor. Ianto opens his mouth and she turns the same tight chocolate brown gaze on him, hands balled into fists at her side. “I’ll be in the bathroom. Leave me alone.” She doesn’t slam the doors behind her, but Ianto is intimately familiar with the sound of a door being closed very carefully as opposed to being slammed so hard the frame shakes and from the slightly sheepish eyes watching him over the hand still pressed to Jack’s lips, so is he.

“So, considering the day she’s had, I think she’s taking that pretty well, don’t you?” He asks, shaking the hand he pulls away from his mouth.

“She thought you were dead. She was pretty sure she’d woken up to a corpse between us in bed, so yeah, I’d say she’s taking it spectacularly.” Thumbing the safety on, Ianto stands slowly and walks towards the bed on legs he hopes aren’t visibly shaking. “Look at you. You look…” he looks perfect, looks like Jack always does except for the coating of blood and dirt. “Jack, you look _fine_.”

“Didn’t I tell you I’d be fine by morning?” The muscles in his arms stand out as Jack leans backwards on them to look up into Ianto’s eyes. “You’re gonna have to start trusting me one of these…” A grunt escapes him, cutting off his words as Ianto shoves the SIG in the back of his jeans and drops violently to the mattress, straddling Jack and digging long fingers into his thick chestnut hair. Under him Jack tips his head back, eyes fluttering shut as Ianto crushes their mouths together in a frantic biting kiss. It’s hot, angry, and walks the edge of desperate.

“You’re a fucking bastard Jack Harkness.” The words press against Jack’s parted lips in a puff of warm air.

“It’s been said once or twice.” Hot hands cups Ianto’s hips, fingertips skating under his shirt and across the hard muscles in his back, thumbs brushing across the jut of his hipbones. “You seem kind of pleased I’m not dead.”

“You’re an idiot as well as a bastard.” He snakes his head back down and licks his way into Jack’s mouth, drinking in the rumbling groan from the man under him as he tangles his fingers tighter in the lush fall of hair and wrenches Jack’s head further back. Jack tastes like cold clear air in the fall and under the reek of cordite and old blood Ianto can catch warm hints of that smell of his that drives the Welshman crazy. Warm wool and something not quite like fresh Columbian roast or bitter chocolate or caramel on the smoky edge of scorching but almost like all of them. Ianto’s hard and trembling, almost sick with relief as he buries his nose in the soft hair above Jack’s ear. “I fell asleep _knowing_ with my whole being you’d be dead when I woke up. I thought I’d lost you too.”

“You’re shaking like you’re gonna fly apart.” Jack’s arms wrap tighter around him, pressing Ianto harder against him, his whispered words tickling across the tender skin under the younger man’s chin.

“I feel like I’m going to fly apart. I didn’t know what to do.” Ianto tips his head back and lets Jack bite and suck his way to the pounding pulse point at the base of his throat, wrung out and slack in the captain’s grip. Under him Jack arches up roughly, grinding against him hot and hard enough that Ianto would swear in court he could feel the heat against his own cock.

“Everyone’s alive, we’re armed, and we outnumber them. You were _perfect_ Ianto Jones. Shit.” A half swallowed whimper chokes him as Jack stops writhing under him, pulling back until his panting is just an almost felt suggestion on Ianto’s throat. “Stop.”

Stop, says the man who’s hands are still kneading the back of his neck and his ass. Ianto rolls his hips down, grinding into Jack’s lap.

“Christ. Really, Jack?” He grips Jack’s hair tightly at the base of his skull, just the way the older man liked it best.

“Yes really. What about Cheyenne?” A wash of cold creeps across Ianto’s skin all at once.

“Oh no, don’t worry about Cheyenne. This is the _least_ upsetting thing that has happened to me today.” She’s leaning against the doorjamb when Ianto whips his head around. Her face is scrubbed clean of the dirt and mascara tracks that had been scrubbed across her eyes and cheeks, the hair tumbling around her having finger combing marks in it. The hem of her shirt is just brushing the bottom of her thighs behind her folded jeans and she’s _smirking_ at him. “Seriously, I’ll just be here, quiet as a mouse, won’t even know I’m here. Unless I’m interrupting a moment. Cause I can go wash my hair or something.”

Ianto has absolutely no idea what to do here. He’s hard and panting in Jack’s lap and Cheyenne is just watching them with a blush across her face and the same bright eyed smirk she wears when he touches her. For an endless moment Ianto freezes, terrifyingly sure that he is still asleep because this is teetering on the verge of surreal, before Jack nips at a freshly risen bruise on his neck and that feels far too good and sharp to be anything but real. He fucking _whines_ and it should be embarrassing, mortifying even, but Chy flushes, catching her bottom lip in her teeth and Ianto Jones is many things but a fool isn’t one of them. Jack laughs low in his throat and it rumbles through both of them.

“You’d hurt my feelings if you stayed all the way over there. I’m really _very_ friendly.” Ianto can feel the curve of Jack’s smile against his throat as he’s dragged down firmly against the straining fly of the older man’s trousers. “Aren’t I Ianto?” She makes a little sound in the back of her throat that has Ianto’s hips snapping sharply into Jack’s as he nods stupidly, lips pressed tightly shut before he does something thick like announce how awesome this is. Her jeans hit the floor with a thump as she chuckles low in her throat.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this.” The tails of her shirt twitch apart as she sways across the floor, flashing bright glimpses of electric bright violet underwear. “Seriously.” The mattress shifts as she crawls up behind him pressing her body against his. “Who does this happen to?” He has to arch back to snarl his fingers in her hair and twist both of their bodies to kiss her, but damned if it doesn’t slide him against Jack in truly fantastic ways. Jack has his teeth sunk into the rise of muscle where shoulder sweeps into neck working another dark bruise into Ianto’s skin and Cheyenne makes a fantastic sound against his mouth as the hand that was gripping the nape of Ianto’s neck disappears seconds before her soft body is being pressed firmer against his back.

“Apparently it happens to you.” Jack laughs, and he _has_ to have his hands on her ass because that’s the same little hitching sigh she makes when Ianto grabs her. The thin hands that have been fluttering against his shoulders slide around him, plucking at the buttons on his shirt which is obviously a fantastic idea because Ianto is wearing far too many clothes to be sandwiched between these two. Jack wiggles his hand off of Ianto and Chy tosses her head back with a whimper. It’s almost maddening that Ianto can’t see what Jack is doing to wring those noises out of her and make her nails scrabble against his chest like that, can only twist between the two of them and imagine. “God, you’re so _wet_.”

“Oh _fuck_.” There’s not enough space between their bodies as Ianto fumbles with the buckle of his belt. He’s too hard to stay in these jeans another second. “Fuck. Move, cause these are coming off.”

There’s a spring digging into Ianto’s shoulder as he flops to the side, tearing at his belt and staring at the way ridge of Jack’s knuckles look moving under purple silk, how bright his grin is in the dim light as he beams down at the slim form curled around him, her face buried in Jack’s neck as she rides his hand.

“I have a spectacular imagination, but you are exceeding it. I don’t think you know how good you feel, kiddo, but you are just _soaked_.” The hem of her shirt is swaying across the fullest curve of her hips as Cheyenne squirms against him, gripping desperately at the wrist disappearing into her clothes and Jack must seriously be some sort of sex _God_ because she’s already making those high pitched little hitching sighs that say she’s on her way fast and hard. Her face is still buried in the valley where her elbow meets the crook of Jack’s neck and something about this sudden shyness from the woman who never blinked twice at fucking all over his flat, cameras be damned, is flipping switches Ianto didn’t know he had. Or maybe it’s the expression on Jack’s face as he tucks his head down to murmur in her ear, like _he’s_ the lucky one. Like _Jack_ can’t believe he’s here but he’s going to enjoy every second of it. Either way it’s got the head of his cock slick and sticky against the inside of his boxers as Ianto shimmies out of them, hissing as the elastic catches it, smacking it against his stomach with a slap.

Jack doesn’t look over, doesn’t need to see to wrap his hand around Ianto, hard and callused. The knuckles he stuffs in his mouth don’t do a thing to muffle the moan that rips out of Ianto’s throat and that must just do it for Cheyenne because he can hear the cry she makes behind the lock of her teeth in Jack’s shoulder. Not coming with her takes every bit of concentration Ianto has, leaving teeth prints dug white into his fist and Jack doesn’t help, swirling his thumb through the thick precome welling out of him and popping it into his mouth almost thoughtfully as his busy hand slows, easing her down.

“I think,” His words are muffled by the thumb still in his mouth. Jack rolls his eyes at himself, pulling his thumb away with an obscenely wet pop. “I think she should do that again. Ianto, scoot up closer to the wall.” He moves back so fast the mattress rubs hot against his skin, watching with a grin he can’t hold back as Jack picks Chy up like she doesn’t weigh a thing and sets her in Ianto’s lap. There’s an intense little frown on Jack’s face as he arranges her up on her knees so that she’s bent back until her head rests on Ianto’s shoulder. “There we go. Got your balance? Good. Hold her steady.”

Ianto’s hands move without thought, spanning the flare of her hips and grinning up at Jack as he rubs his face against her hair.

“Yes Sir.”

“Hope you aren’t real fond of these kiddo.” Her body jerks up against his hands, the drag of wet cloth on his cock registering seconds before the sound of split silk and then Jack is tossing scraps of purple fabric off to the side. “There we go.”

The angle Jack has bent her back into gives Ianto a nearly perfect view down her body of Jack settling between her thighs, his floppy bangs brushing against her lower stomach.

“Having fun yet?” Because he is certainly enjoying every moment of this, from the lewd sounds she’s breathing directly into his ear to the way Jack has squirmed further into the cradle of Ianto’s thighs to get closer and is stroking just the inner edge of Ianto’s thighs with his nails.

“Oh, _fuck_ yes!” _There’s_ the woman that’s been in his bed for almost a week now, carding her fingers through Jack’s hair with one hand and tugging her shirt up with the other to get a clearer view. “Jesus, he’s fucking fantastic!”

“He hasn’t even gotten going yet.” She squeaks and Ianto’s pretty sure he has to fuck her right now. Rolls his hips up and feels her slick and open. “More?”

“Hell yes, more.”

More is teasingly too good, pinned almost still by her off center mass and Jack’s firm grip, not able to do much more than grind up into her slick heat clamped around him as she writhes on him trying to get closer to Jack who’s working her steadily back to the edge and then over it.

“Oh _shit_. I’m done. I’m tapping out.” Her breathy voice is trembling as hard as her legs, thumping weakly at the top of Jack’s skull. She slides off, leaving Ianto shaking on the white razor edge of coming and flops on the mattress next to him, grinning at him. “But please, keep going.”

At the foot of the bed Jack is kicking out of his trousers, cock flushed brutally red, almost as slick as the mess decorating his face. The light catches it just right as Jack laughs and it glistens in the shadow of stubble around his mouth. It occurs to Ianto that licking that musky dampness off those soft new bristles would feel fantastic and he’s crawling across the mattress before he can finish forming the thought. Jack simply leans back on his elbows and tips his face up, basking in the flicks and nips, the rasp of wet tongue over rough prickles. The fat weight of his cock is smooth and perfect as Ianto ruts down against him, just enough to tease.

“Wow, you are really into this, aren’t you kiddo?” For a moment of blind confusion Ianto cannot imagine why Jack would ask such a singularly stupid question but when he cuts his eyes to the side Ianto can see where Cheyenne has crept quietly down the mattress and is watching them wide eyed from behind her hair.

“Oh yes.” She’s frozen on fingertips and the balls of her feet, watching with predator bright eyes that contrast fantastically with the shy whisper of her voice. “Are you going to fuck him?”

“He bloody well better.” Ianto’s speaking before he bothers to think, rubbing his face along the freshly cleaned edge of Jack’s jaw.

“Oh, I am. I’m going to fuck you and she’s going to watch.” It catches him by surprise still, even though it’s hardly the first time Jack has done this, sprung into motion from a seemly lax position and flung Ianto bodily around like someone much larger than himself. One moment he’s straddling Jack, brushing the head of his cock against the cuts of the older mans abs and the next his hands are slapping down onto the blue striped ticking to keep him from going face first into it as Jack flips him effortlessly onto all fours so that he and Chy are staring wide-eyed at each other from inches away. There’s no stopping the fierce red blush burning across his face as Jack begins leaving perfect imprints of his teeth in the small of Ianto’s back and heading further down with each bite. The sprawl of her curls is blocking out the light behind her, but not enough to hide the way his eyes flutter shut and his breath stutters as Jack spreads him wide and runs the hot wet glide of his tongue all the way down.

“What’s he doing?” She’s crept closer still, almost too close for his eyes to focus on her. Close enough to feel her words on his mouth, to breathe her air on the sharp inhalation as Jack begins working his tongue inside him in teasing little stabs.

“He’s l-licking me. It’s, _oh shit_ , it’s good.” She’s inched closer still so that he’s breathing his words out into her ear, peering down the bowed line of his back. “It’s _really_ good.”

“Well, it looks like it’s about to get better.” The chemical vanilla scent of Jack’s favorite lube reaches him seconds before the blunt pressure of two fingers working their way slowly into him, curving and flexing and toying with his rim until Ianto has his face buried in her throat, clinging to her waist with one hand as Jack makes a show of stretching him. Three fingers replace two and it should be mortifying, the way he’s grinding back against them and moaning, but Ianto can’t seem to work up a single shred of shame when he can hear the quick wet sound of Jack slicking himself over the panting next to his ear. “Oh. Oh wow.” Wow is right. The faint edge of a burn runs up his spine as the thick head of Jack’s cock presses steadily in. No pauses for adjusting, just a long slow press until the captain’s weight is draped across his back, long arms crossing over Ianto’s chest and pulling back until he’s upright, impaled in Jack’s lap and trying not to squirm as Cheyenne rests her hands on his thighs and stares up at him with lust blown eyes. “Jesus darlin, _look_ at you. Do you know how hot you are right now?”

“No, he doesn’t.” Jack’s lips brush against the nape of his neck and seriously, how long do they think he can hold out when Jack is doing things like wrapping Cheyenne’s hand around Ianto’s painfully hard cock as he starts to thrust so that every movement fucks him up into their combined grip. “Wait until you see him come this way. Fantastic.”

“Well she’s gonna s-see it really soon if you don’t s-slow down.” Really, he should get some kind of award for stringing a sentence that complex together when Jack is picking up as much speed as their position can give him, pounding away steadily at him.

“I want her to. You want to see it now, don’t you sweetheart?” Her hand convulses around him right as one hard stroke smashes across his prostate and it doesn’t matter what Chy was waiting to see because Ianto is coming _right now_ , splattering their fists and his stomach with the kind of orgasm that pulls itself from your fucking _teeth_. It leaves him cursing and gasping, slumped bonelessly against Jack and blinking owlishly at the ceiling as Jack fills him, flooding him in a hot rush.

“So…what are the odds of this happening again _after_ I take your amnesia pill?” Ianto rolls his head down and manages to muster the energy to lift one eyebrow. She counters by lifting her sticky hand to her mouth, sliding two fingers past her parted lips, curling her tongue around them and Jack whimpers as a shudder runs through Ianto.

“Okay, everyone off the ride.” He slides free with a slick squelch and Ianto let’s himself be shoved over onto his side across the middle of the mattress, lifting his arm just enough for Cheyenne to squirm in under his chin with a yawn while Jack, that energetic fuck, stands with a spine cracking stretch, completely unselfconscious as he scratches his stomach. Ianto’s limbs all feel fucked useless and Chy is already yawning with her face tucked against his chest while he keeps his eyes on Jack who’s sliding his trousers back up over his hips. “I want you two to get some sleep. We’ve got a lot to go over before we can try to get back into the Hub.”

He’s going to regret not getting up to clean himself off when he wakes up but for now Ianto can’t be bothered to move beyond tracking Jack who’s moving further away from the bed and putting more clothes on.

“Then how come it sounds like you’re putting clothes on instead of climbing in here with us?”

“Other than not being exhausted the way the both of you are?” The black tee shirt Jack is tugging down is stretched tight across his chest, the red dragon bisected by the line of the spare shoulder holster he’s buckling on from the bag. “Because I’ve got to go drag the bodies inside that warehouse and lock it down before someone finds three alien corpses. I’ll set the security myself, no one’s getting in here but me.” Cheyenne snorts into Ianto’s chest.

“And what’s going to keep you from getting jumped again?” From her position she can’t see the coldly satisfied smile that crosses Jack’s face.

“They don’t have enough bodies to take me a second time.” His boots are heavy on the old wooden floor as Jack pauses on his way to the door long enough to turn out the light, dropping the room into a pure blackness that makes his voice almost ring. “Sleep. I mean it. I’ll be back.”


	13. Chapter 13

The room is even uglier in the light of day.

Ianto wakes to the scent of stale sex and scorched bitter coffee and scowls at the peeling brownish wallpaper.

“This is the ugliest safe house I’ve ever seen.” Jack looks up from where he’s folded up on the floor, hunched over the laptop across his thighs and smirks.

“And here I thought it had a certain flop house charm. Coffee?” A thick beam of sunlight is right in Ianto’s eyes when he sits up, cheap crappy tourist blanket scratching his bare skin as it puddles in his lap. He hunches over the cup of substandard gas station coffee to get out of bright light.

“No. It’s ugly and needs a coffee machine. What’s going on at the Hub?”

“Everything’s looking good in the cell block. Gwen’s having a fit, Owen’s sleeping, and I’m pretty sure Tosh is building a death ray out of her own hair.” This is achingly familiar, curled naked in Jack’s bed listening to him make jokes that barely qualify as funny when he’s supposed to be discussing a case.

“You know you aren’t funny Jack.” The coffee is just as bad as it smells. Over boiled with a hint of metal from sitting too long in a cheap kettle and too sweet because Jack cannot be broken of the belief that more sugar can overcome crap coffee. He just smirks at Ianto’s dry drawl.

“Well, I must have forgotten without someone reminding me everyday. Sometimes twice. But Toshiko is definitely plotting something. I know that expression. Both the Ugarii are on the main level.” A scowl tips Jack’s mouth down. “Looks like they managed to get into the armory.”  
Cheyenne shifts under the blanket, tucking her head against Ianto’s hip, curling an arm around his waist and settles without a sound.

“Standard or Secure?” The coffee is seriously undrinkable. Ianto sets it on the floor next to the mattress and makes a face as the mess on his skin pulls and itches. He starts looking around for his boxers.

“Standard, but we’ve still got some pretty serious firepower there. Looks like they’ve tried to hack the rift manipulator and locked themselves out of most of the system. Looking for these?” Jack is dangling Ianto’s underwear from one finger, eyes still trained on the screen and an amused twitch at the corner of his mouth.

“Yes. Gimmie those.” The twitch gives way to a full grin as Ianto darts forward and snatches them, disappearing under the too hot wool blanket to squirm into them. “Tell me this dump has water, preferably hot?”

“Water yes, no promises for the temperature.” The drag of the covers off his hair leaves it standing on end and crackling with static as Ianto shoves his head out into the slightly less stifling room.

“You’re kidding me.” Jack just shakes his head. “Make a note for yourself. Get me a list of the safe houses when I come back, I’ll make sure they have hot water from now on.” He squirms out of Cheyenne’s grip and shudders as he steps in the cool sticky mess from last night. “Make that hot water and sheets.”

“All right princess, just go get cleaned up. I should have a game plan by the time you’re done.”

“I can kick your ass Jack. I’m still on probation.”

“You can try Ianto Jones. Go take your shower, I’ve got work to do.”

***

The water is not hot. It’s not cold, thank God, but it’s an uncomfortable sort of lukewarm that makes every second he spends under the sputtering spray it’s own obnoxious hell. There are no towels and his boxers are plastered to him as Ianto stalks back into the room trying to keep the water out of his eyes. This was what happened when you forgot to get your hair cut, you ended up on the run from eel people with cold water running down your back.

“Lame, you look like the shower sucks as much as this sludge.” Cheyenne is wrapped in the blanket sipping at the remains of his coffee.

“Okay, you two are under the impression that being on the run from your enemies includes all the amenities.” Jack is glowering over at them above the back of the laptop screen. Cheyenne snorts into her cup.

“Says the man who’s spying on aliens using the newest Mac running off a 4G line and drinking corner store coffee.” Ianto hastily shoves his head in his tee shirt to keep Jack from seeing him laugh at the flabbergasted pout on the man’s face. “I’m just sayin, I studied Proto-Tai on site and we still had hot water.” He pops his head through in time to see her wink at him on her way to the door.

“So, what exactly is this ship part they need so badly and why are we holding it?” The buckle of his belt is hanging loose from his undone jeans, thumping against his legs as Ianto tries to find his socks.

“These handsome fellows are smugglers. They were snatched by the rift two weeks ago, crashed up north. They _did_ lose a couple plasma manifolds, but we had the cells for those. We were dropping them off when they mentioned that they had dropped some cargo when the aft bays blew and one of the items they were describing happens to be illegal in every corner of the civilized galaxy. It’s…well think of it like an anti-terraformer. It can strip an entire planet to dust in a month and these idiots had just jettisoned the thing when they thought we were boarding to search. I’ve got it locked down under every safety protocol we’ve got, but honestly we’ve got to get this thing off planet. Once we’ve got these things out of the Hub I’m going to have to relocate it until we have another option.”

“I think I’m going to throw up.” The faint voice from the doorway echoes Ianto’s sentiments exactly. She‘s still paused on the threshold, shower forgotten. “You’re saying those things were smuggling _planet killers_ and you’ve got their weapon in the _city_?”

“Sit down before you fall down.” Her skin is actually cold to the touch as Ianto crosses the floor, wrapping his arm around Cheyenne as she sways, guiding her towards Jack.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” Jack reaches over, wrapping his hand around her ankle and rubbing along the dip of muscle soothingly. “You don’t have to do this. I have ret-con on me right now Cheyenne. You can be back in your hotel in an hour, amazed that you slept from the moment you got back in town until noon.”

“No. No, no, no. I’m not taking a damn thing until those things are dead and it’s just the good guys who know where the goddamned doomsday machine is.”

“Are you _sure_ you don’t want a job?” Ianto rolls his eyes as she glares at Jack. “Fine, just asking. Also, if it makes you feel better, this is not planet Earth’s first confiscated doomsday weapon. It’s all going to work out fine. Get your shower and get dressed, I need to send you out for a few things.”

“Good.” Her voice is still a bit unsteady as she rises. “Add enough money in there to replace my underwear.” She gathers up her scattered clothes, leaving Ianto to stare at Jack.

“Jack, this is a lot bigger than I could have imagined. Why aren’t we calling UNIT in on this? We’re not a thousand strong with our own personal army anymore.”

“Torchwood might not be as big anymore, but we also won’t have a bureaucracy war over the deadliest thing on Earth either. Trust me Ianto, if One was still standing, I’d _still_ be handling this in house and alone.” The thought of this device in the tower the day it was destroyed is enough to make Ianto’s palms sweat.

“I get your point. So then what’s the plan?” The pipes are noisy and the running water can be heard from the center of the room. Jack groans, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms as he yawns.

“These guys run on a thirty-nine hour cycle. They’re already three hours or so over when they’d normally be resting. Which means by tonight they’re either both going to be tired to the point of exhaustion, or resting in shifts. Either way, it’s good for us. Our best bet is splitting up, a team of two taking one of the back entrances and the other one going in one of the front ways. The main entrance gives you an enclosed area where you can put your back, but once you’re in the elevator the only way out is in front of you. The lift gives you surprise, but you’re a stationary target for the fifteen seconds it takes to get to the ground.”

“So you’re saying one of us takes Cheyenne in the back and the other one is bait? That’s…not bad. If I come in the front, they won’t even be looking for you. They think you’re dead.”

“Which is why I’ll have the element of surprise when they see _me_ going in the front.” He waves off Jack’s protest, chewing his lip and fiending for a smoke as he takes the bare bones of Jack’s plan and begins tweaking them as he speaks.

“No. You’d have the one up for a few seconds, _maybe_ , before they opened fire and unless they’re dumb as rocks they’re going to make sure you stay down this time. But they’re _looking_ for me. They want my codes and they obviously don’t know I’m locked out of the system with those. I can stall, bullshit a trade of the thing for the others. If you drop Chy in the cells you can have her let the others out and that gives you a chance to get on the walkways behind them while she arms up the others. Ten minutes and we’ll have them outnumbered and out gunned.”

“It’s a great plan. Really well thought out, actually, except for the part where I’m not sending a suspended member of my staff in through the front alone.”

“Fuck my suspension Jack! What happened to ‘we are Torchwood now, we make the rules?’ You can’t be the bait, Jack, because they will kill you on sight and then come looking for myself and Cheyenne. They will hunt us down and neither of us happen to carry around remote access to the Hub on our wrists, so we‘ll be running blind with no way to lock ourselves down.”

The pipes have stopped banging in the bathroom. Jack is glaring at him with narrowed eyes and the tips of his ears gone red with annoyance.

“This isn’t a democracy Ianto. I know what I’m doing and there are lives at risk…”

“And if you go in the front you’re adding Cheyenne and me to that list of lives in danger! You know every fucking inch of the Hub and you’ve got access to places I don’t anymore! In what reality are those skills better utilized as _bait_?” His skin itches with the urge to just throttle Jack until he sees reason. “I’m safer in their hands and if anything goes wrong I’m more…” Jack’s voice raises to a shout over his.

“You say expendable and I will…”

“You’ll _what_ Jack?” Ianto can feel the hair on the back of his neck standing up in response to the threat of Jack rolling up to his feet, squaring his shoulders back. The blood is pounding behind his eyes and everything he would have sworn he had put behind him, _must_ have put behind him to sleep with Jack again flushes through him, leaving him dizzy with the urge to swing. His fist is clenched hard enough to leave fingernail marks in the palm of his hand when a sharp whistle pierces the air.

“What the fuck is this?” He’s closer to Jack than he remembers being because Cheyenne is between them, a palm slapping flat on each of their chests and shoving hard enough that he actually stumbles backwards. “I wasn’t gone ten fucking minutes, what the fuck could either of you say in ten minutes that’s got the two of you ready to swing for the fences?” She stomps her foot. “I want a fucking answer! I want to know what’s so important you two can take time out to start bitching and crying and trying to stomp the shit out of each other?”

“We are neither bitching, nor crying.” Jack’s voice is tight as he crosses his arms over his chest. “We’re having a useless argument over who’s going in with you for backup and who’s bait, which I’m going to win because I’m his boss and this isn’t a democracy.”

“Well, I’d be pissed too if I had to be bait and you were being a dick about it…” Ianto can’t force down the smirk creeping across his face.

“See, even Cheyenne thinks I’m the obvious bait.”

“Okay, I’m going to let ‘even Cheyenne’ slide since you’re _obviously_ having a moment. If Ianto isn’t the bait, who’s supposed to be, because they don’t know who I am and they think Jack is dead.”

“Thank you!”

“You stay out of it for a minute!” Her finger almost jabs Ianto in the chest as she pokes at him. “There’s probably a reason Jack’s the boss and not you, so maybe he has a good reason. Jack? You got a good reason to let the bad guys know you’re alive before you’ve got a gun to their heads?” Her hands are planted stubbornly on her hips.

“I don’t _need_ a good reason, I’m in charge! I don‘t have to explain anything!” He actually throws his hands in the air in frustration.

“Well you’re not _my_ goddamned boss, so you damn well do have to explain to me, because this is my fucking life on the line and I don’t know you like that! If I’m going in with you guys then yeah, I want to know why we‘re not using the person they‘re expecting to see?”

“Because I don’t make a habit of sending my people in where I won’t go!”

“I’m not going in where you _won’t_ go, you idiot, I’m going in where you _can’t_! You have a better chance of getting Cheyenne to the cells and then getting onto the crosswalk undetected than I do and when you get there you’re a better distance shot with a handgun. I’d need a rifle and you know it.” The anger drains out of Ianto as he rakes his hands through his hair. “Jack, when you asked me if I was coming back, you said I’d need to be able to trust you with a gun at my back again. That’s what I’m trying to do here Jack. I’m going in damn near helpless and I _need_ it to be you at my back with a gun.”

Jack stares blankly at him, eyes too large and face too pale before shoving his hand into the pocket of his greatcoat and pulling out a crumpled receipt.

“This is the name of a storage company, the address, and the codes to get into the unit and then the lockers inside.” He folds the wrinkled paper into Cheyenne’s fist. “The headsets I want look like Bluetooth sets, and don’t try to open any of the cases. I typed out directions to the storage place in your Ipod. Stop at McDonalds on the way back and grab something to eat.”

“All right. Fine, you’re the boss Jack. Just…figure out what the fuck we’re doing, please?” She tugs a baseball cap and cheap shades out of a plastic bag and slaps them on, snagging the keys off the floor and disappearing out the door.

“I’m going to assume that’s why SHIELD doesn’t have her yet.” Jack glowers out the window as a motor turns over, hands jammed deeply in his pockets.

“Don’t do that, okay? Don’t make it about Chy like she’s done something wrong. She has put up with my broken fucking… _everything_ and then with you being this, just, _looming_ presence…”

“I thought we talked about that.”

“ _We_ did. You and I talked about it, and I get it, okay Jack? I swear, I know why you had to do it. I _know_ that it had to end, that you did what you had to do. Even if it still kills me, I get it. But _she_ doesn’t. _Cheyenne_ had no idea what was happening or why but she stuck around, even when it all got really weird. She’s _still_ sticking around and she’s putting her life in your hands with this plan. So you don’t get to act like she’s wrong in _any_ way for wanting to know how we’re going to get her out of this.” Ianto curses under his breath as he fumbles his belt buckle, eyes locked on the black leather and silver metal.

“We’re going to get her out by following my plan. You’ve got to trust me on this Ianto. You say you _get it_ , then show me you do and follow orders and trust me to get you all out of this.” Ianto doesn’t look up as Jack’s shoes approach, pausing next to him as a broad hand rests on the back of his neck. “Ianto, you don’t need to be the bait on this one. I know the impulse, I do, but don’t feel like you have to save the world to make up for what happened. You know the Hub as well as I do and we both know it. Go in through the back, send her into the cells, head for the catwalks. Bring a rifle if you really think you’ll need one, I promise, they’ll be too busy with me to find you. But until she’s at the cells, I want _you_ protecting the girl.” Calloused fingers squeeze the nape of his neck gently. “You’re pretty good at that.” His mouth is suddenly too dry and Ianto fights to swallow.

“Recent events would suggest otherwise.”

“Really? Cause you kept your girlfriend safe for quite a while. It’s your monster wrangling skills that need work.” It shocks a small huffed laugh from him, how very inappropriate Jack’s sense of humor can be and how none the less it always seems to work. “But if you don’t believe me, think of this as a second chance. Keep an eye on the Hub feed, I’m going to go see if all the panic rooms were cleaned out.”

Ianto shuffles to the mattress on bare feet, sitting silently and fixing his eyes on the split feeds between the snarling monster things spitting at each other mutely, and the cell block with both exits securely closed. It’s easier than dealing with the gut clenching mix of terror and redemption that washed over him at the phrase ‘second chance’. He watches Jack’s feet out of the corner of his eye as the older man sighs and strides quickly from the room, accepting that he has been played, and played masterfully.

Jack Harkness is a fucking bastard who’s going to get himself killed because Ianto Jones is the kind of idiot who can be convinced to go along with a suicidal plan by two words.

“I can’t tell if you’re just that smooth, Jack, or if you’re a manipulative fucker!” The shout sounds rueful and brittle in the empty building. Thankfully, Jack’s doesn’t sound much better as it floats up from the downstairs.

“I prefer charming, myself.”

***

It takes two and a half hours for Cheyenne to return. Jack seems completely unworried by the amount of time it’s taking, working alternately with his wrist strap and her laptop silently. He returned half an hour into the wait with musty smelling off white sheets and cherry powdered drink mix, so Ianto had flipped the mattress, covered it, and now he’s sitting on it; breaking apart the guns, cleaning them thoroughly and reassembling them while drinking too sweet kool-aid.

“Huh, that was quicker than I thought.” He’s looking up to question Jack, the first time they’ll have spoken since the older man left the room in search for forgotten supplies, when he hears the sound of his car pulling up in the alley around the back of the house and cutting off. “They’re still manning the main floor, no one’s been near the cell block all day. Keep an eye on them, holler if it changes, I’m going to go unload the car.” Jack sets the laptop on the mattress next to the gun oil and is thumping down the stairs two at a time before Ianto can get his hands wiped clean on a rag to take it.

There’s no movement from the Hub other than the relentless pacing of the Ugarii before Ianto hears two sets of treads clattering up the stairs noisily. They both have their hands full, secure metal cases in every hand and a paper McDonalds bag dangling from Cheyenne’s teeth. Ianto keeps an eye on the screen over his shoulder as he pops up and snags the food in one hand and a metal case in the other.

“Thanks. I got nuggets, because I have yet to meet the junk food eating guy who does not like nuggets. Also, I think I just smuggled a fuck ton of weapons into city limits.”

“Not nearly as many as you think you did.” Jack sounds far too amused as he places them carefully on the floor. “Headsets?”

“In my jacket pocket.” She digs them out and Ianto plucks his from her hand quickly, turning it to Three’s main channel and settling it in his left ear. He didn’t realize quite how vulnerable he’s felt without a headset in his ear and a gun at his back. Jack is already keying his to the brown leather around his wrist, brow furrowed in concentration before grinning widely.

“And we have ears!” He reaches up, touching the set. “Are you reading Ianto?” The echo of mechanical, just milliseconds delayed from the boom of Jack’s real voice, wavers like sound through water.

“We’re clear.” Jack nods at him, already standing over Cheyenne, tucking her hair behind her ear as he activates the headset she’s already got on.

“Good. Grab those nuggets, we’re about to have a brief course in Torchwood tech for Cheyenne.”

***

Jack drills her for just over two hours until Cheyenne can strap on her kit and knows the function of everything she’s wearing.

“And what’s that?”

“This is my GPS.” Her hand drums against the scanner strapped onto her waist. “You’ll show up as a red dot, Ianto will be a blue one. Once I’m in the cell block I turn it on. I should see three yellow dots in there with me and two more on the floor with you. Yellow dots don’t have headsets.” Ianto slumps back against the wall, laptop across his thighs as he watches Jack inspecting the way she’s fastened her equipment, tugging on holsters and belts.

“And what does this do?”

“This is my key.” It’s actually an earlier version of the universal lock pick. It’s not actually universal at all, but it’s fantastic on electronic locks like the ones in the cells.

“And how does it work?” At least he looks satisfied by her kit, no longer yanking on the straps around her body and distracting Ianto’s lizard brain with the way his hands looked wrapped around the back of Cheyenne’s thighs and ribs, adjusting buckles.

“I take it off the belt, and it goes against the outside of the glass on the flat opaque panel. I press the second button from the right followed by the circular cartouche encasing an Arabic styled glyph.” Ianto smirks at the way Jack looks exasperated by the way she continuously keeps breaking down any alien symbols into identifiable subcategories. “Each lock will take roughly a minute to open.”

“And who do you open first?”

“Owen. Tosh is planning something and Gwen will want to head directly for the two of you before everyone else is out.” It’s hilarious, the way she’s parroting back exactly what Jack said exactly as he said it in her attempt to keep her instructions straight. “I open Owen’s cell first and give him my other gun. Once everyone is out, they get headsets and we move as a group for the armory.”

“And the other cells will have?”

“Ugly things with too many teeth who cannot get me through the glass so don’t scream.”

“Correct. Okay, show me how you bring up our positions on the scanner and I’ll pronounce you well versed in elementary Torchwood tech and ready for a nap.”

“I still think it’s kind of stupid to have me sleep until it’s time to go while you two stay up watching the feed from your base.” Her fingers are tapping over the un-translated glyphs on the screen, eyes fixed on them greedily even as she auto-navigates through them exactly the way Jack drilled her.

“And _I_ think we’re used to running around the city with our lives on the line for days with only a kip in the backseat here and there while under fire and you are not. You’re our backup, I need you awake and alert. Besides, we’ll be resting too, just in shifts.” She flips the screen around, showing blue, red, and black markers on the blank grey field. “Good. Now get it all off and get in the bed. As long as they stay on the main floor, we’re leaving around nine. Ianto, go ahead and bunk down.”

“Not a remote chance Sir.” They seem to be sleeping in shifts in the cells as well, both the girls curled on their bunks dozing lightly while Owen paces the floor, hands in pockets. “You haven’t been down since well before dawn. I’m going to have to insist you go first.”

“Please Jack, just go first.” Cheyenne has her hand on Jack’s arm, tugging at it. “If we need naps after sleeping most the morning, then you need one too after hauling corpses when I’m not sure how you’re even on your feet. Because I can completely believe that if Ianto goes first we’ll both end up sleeping through until it’s time to go and just think how we’d feel if something happened to _you_ because you were the tired one.” Jack scowls, even as he fidgets with his wrist strap.

“Fine, but I’ve set the alarm on this thing. In two hours I get up and you go down with no arguments, are we clear?”

“Of course Sir.” Cheyenne is already curled on the mattress, handgun on the floor beside her head, pink socks sticking out the bottom of the blanket as she squirms until she’s comfortable. The shadows of nearby buildings, all as worn and disreputable as this one have the room already edging from dim towards dark but there’s still a single sliver of light that glints off the buttons on Jack’s coat as he stretches out on the mattress on his back with an arm thrown across his eyes. Her brown eyes watch Ianto through her bangs as Cheyenne scoots across the mattress until the line of her back is pressed tightly against Jack’s side.

It isn’t quite jealousy Ianto feels when Jack snorts from under the wool of his sleeve and reaches out to tuck Cheyenne into the crook of his body, big hand spread comfortably across her hip. There’s too much warmth and longing mixed in with the uncomfortable tangle of desire and discomfort that makes him want to crawl between them until everything feels even and on kilter again. Instead Ianto gathers up the laptop and winks at her, gesturing towards the door before slipping out into the darkened hall, settling on the floor just outside the cracked door and focusing on tracking the things that seem to be working out some kind of sleep rota of their own.

It might not be jealousy, but it doesn’t feel great either.

***

It’s a long two hours before the soft familiar chirping of Jack’s wrist strap breaks the silence of the air. The sounds of Jack stretching and waking are familiar if not dramatically quieter due to the second sleeping form in the room.

“Jack, wait a second.”

Quieter, but apparently not quiet enough. Cheyenne sounds as if she’s actually managed to get some rest during the enforced nap, voice sleep rich and slow as she whispers. If Ianto tips his head to the side he can just make out their silhouettes, Jack crouched next to the bed and the long lump stretched across it.

“What’s wrong sweetheart?” There’s movement, shadow stroking shadow, Jack probably brushing her hair back away from her face.

“I just wanted to say something, while we had a minute, just me and you.” Her voice is pitched low, almost too quiet for him to hear. “Ianto told me what happened. With Lisa I mean.”

He doesn’t want to hear this. Whatever it is, Ianto knows he probably doesn’t want to hear it, but he can’t make himself get up. He pulls his eyes off them and watches the screen and the alien angrily trying to work its way into the mostly locked out system.

“I know it’s really hard, what you guys do, and I can only imagine that was harder than normal and I’m kinda of babbling because this is a bit awkward, but I just wanted to say thanks. For saving the world and not shooting Ianto, you know, since I’m benefiting from those things and no one else has probably said it.” She _is_ babbling, still half asleep by the sound of it.

“Well, that’s what I get paid the big bucks for kiddo. Saving the world. Sleep a little more, huh?” The floor creaks as Jack crosses it and leans in the doorway, a washed out grayscale of himself in the blue light of the backlit screen. “Time’s up. An hour down, starting now.” The floor adjusts again as the captain shifts his weight. “Make that an hour down from when I get out of the can.”

“Charming as always, Jack.” The older man grins down at him, one hand scrubbing over tired eyes.

“Aren’t I?” He stumbles slightly as he yawns and disappears into the bathroom. Ianto wishes he had more coffee, even the awful kind from this morning because this is the longest he’s been sober since the night Lisa died and he’s starting to feel it. A nap is probably a good idea. Drastically cutting back on how much he’s drinking once this is over is probably a better one.

He lets Jack take the laptop and shoo him off towards the mattress where Cheyenne is curled in on herself and snuffling softly around the side of her fist. It occurs to Ianto as he edges closer to the mattress that’s he’s never seen her deeply asleep. She’s always on the edge of waking or just sinking into sleep. He toes off his shoes and crawls up the mattress next to her, moving carefully to keep from rousing her because he’s pretty sure she’s sucking her thumb and he’s not sure if he finds that kind of cute or disturbingly hot but he thinks he can make up his mind if he can get a clear view. He’s brushing the hair back from her face when she cracks open one eye and jerks her head up and that was _definitely_ the soft wet sound of suction being broken.

“Boy, why are you staring at me?” He tucks her hair behind her ear as he eases down onto his elbow.

“Because you suck your thumb when you sleep.” It’s hard to keep the smile off his face at the way she flushes a sudden and bright pink as Ianto traces the wet curve of her bottom lip with his thumb.

“Do not.” The protest is as sulky as it is sleepy but she doesn’t try to squirm away as he wraps himself around her, nibbling at her mouth.

“You do too. It’s kinda hot.” She’s warm under him, eyes shut drowsily, fingers tangled loosely in his clothes as he kisses her.

“Look, I’m game, but I’m also tired, so if you’re planning on making a move be advised that I’m not going to do a thing but lie here and get off, and if I go first, I might go back to sleep before you’re done so feel free to finish.”

“You’re not serious.” She cracks open one eye, smirking up at him against his mouth.

“Well, it’s unlikely I’ll fall asleep...”

“Children, fucking is not napping!” Jack’s voice sing-songs in from the hall. “Stop necking and rest.” The back of Ianto’s neck itches with all the blood rushing north, turning him bright red as Cheyenne giggles under him.

“Don’t be a hater Jack, it’s unattractive.”

“Get your rest and I won’t have anything to complain about. Naps, take them.” Ianto flops back onto the mattress with an expression that is _definitely_ a manly scowl and nothing at all like a pout, Cheyenne still radiating amusement even through the darkness as she curls up with her head on his chest.

***

Apparently he did, in fact, need a nap because Jack is shaking him carefully awake so he must have slept. Cheyenne is moving off him already, alert if a bit sluggish as she stretches long and hard before reaching for her gear.

“Hit the loo, get your gear, I’ll meet you both at the car in ten.” Jack already has the duffle of weapons slung up on his shoulder as he heads for the stairs, leaving Ianto to kit up rapidly and then check Cheyenne over as well.

“I wish you weren’t coming with us.” She rolls her eyes but reaches down and grabs his hand, squeezing it.

“I wish eel people hadn’t brought a doomsday weapon into town and fucked up my vacation. You know where we’re going, you have my back. I’m only mostly scared.”

“And you’re okay with being mostly scared?” She pulls out a flashlight as he cuts off the lamp, twining her fingers with the hand not currently cradling his gun.

“Well, since I was absolutely fucking terrified twelve hours ago, yeah. I’ll take mostly scared and be grateful.” Their footfall on the stairs echoes as they pick their way to the rectangle of moonlight coming from the back of the alley and the sound of his engine idling. “Ianto, honestly, is Jack’s plan going to work? For him I mean?” They cross the cracked plastic flooring of the kitchen and Ianto can see Jack now, leaning against the side of the car in his coat, looking every inch the hero as if this is going to be a quick fifteen minute stroll in the park. Jack must see some movement from the gloom that enshrouds them because he looks up into the kitchen and winks.

“Honestly? I really hope so.”

***


	14. Chapter 14

They stop the car to let Jack out around the corner from the water tower.

“It’s two after nine now. In three minutes I’m going to set off every alarm we have. Be in the garage by then. As soon as you hear everything going off, head for the loading bay. You know what to do from there.” Jack has his hand locked around the door handle, ready to sling it open as soon as he finishes delivering his instructions. “And Ianto, if things go south, lock the entire main level down.”

“With what codes?” He’s white knuckled on the steering wheel, staring ahead into the dark streets.

“With yours. I reactivated all of them when everything started going wrong. Just in case.” Jack slings the door open, moving from the car to standing in one fluid movement, grinning down into the car. “See you in a few.”

Jack slams the door because he _always_ slams the door and takes off running through the darkest part of the shadows before Ianto can do more than stare at him blankly. He shakes his head in disbelief even as he throws the car into drive and guns away from the curb, speeding through the dark streets towards the carpark. The radio is playing the Black Keys quietly and he turns it up to try and drown out the white noise of adrenaline buzzing in his brain.

“Ready?” Cheyenne has undone her seatbelt and is leaning forward between the front seats as he blows past the gate with barely an inch of clearance between the roof of the car and the slowly raising striped arm.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.” The orange lights are flickering over their faces as he whips through the levels leading down below the street where the city vehicles are parked.

“Good. Oh, and don’t worry. We won’t hit a wall.”

“We won’t…holy fucking hell!” Her voice is shrill as Ianto whips them around the last corner far too fast and heads directly for the cement wall ahead of them and then through it. He spares a glance in the rearview at where she’s pressed as far back against the rear seat as she can get, fingertips dimpling the leather seats. “Oh, you little bastard. You couldn’t just say ‘fake wall coming’? And stop smiling, that wasn’t funny.” The tunnel down to the loading bay is lit with white halogen bulbs that flash past, making her sheepish smile flicker as Cheyenne scoots back to her position between the seats.

“I take my fun where I can get it in times like this.”

Time is not on their side right now. Ianto is taking the curves at dangerous speeds as the tunnel curls around under the Millennium Center and around the outside of the base towards the loading bay on the far side of sublevel three. Jack should be above them right now, invisible on the lift and waiting for the clock to tick through the next sixty seconds before he knocks the Hub into panic mode and descends alone and unguarded. Ahead the loading bay is a well lit cavern that’s coming up fast.

“Seatbelt on.” He’s going to need to take the car in to the shop in the morning if they make it through the night. Flicking his eyes to the rearview again to make sure Cheyenne is fastened securely, Ianto drops his hand to the emergency break and pulls it as they clear the edge of the tunnel, jerking the wheel hard to the right and sending the car into a spin across the cement. The sound of wheels locking screams through the silent space for just a second before all the lights go red and a howling siren splits the dimness. One of the support columns whips past them on the left before the car shudders to a grinding stop just feet away from dock two. He’s already in motion, seatbelt off and door flung open, and when he looks in the back Cheyenne is matching him move for move despite her pale face and too wide eyes. “Get the guns.” She almost fumbles the catch as he tosses his keys to her, jerking his head towards the trunk as he climbs onto the bay and starts overriding the lock.

The alarms cover the echoing slam of his trunk nicely as Cheyenne hops up next to him. She’s paused to pull her hair back tightly and hands him two spare pistols and the SIG 516 before he can request it.

“You’ve got a 556 pistol in your holster. Thought you might want this one. Besides,” She’s opted for a rifle as well, handling the long colt with ease. “I’m a Colt girl.”

“That sentence shouldn’t be that hot. Keep your head down, follow me on my right, and shoot anything that isn’t me. Or my dinosaur.”

“Of _course_ you have a dinosaur.” The light on the door flashes green and releases with an inaudible click.

“Right. Let’s go save the day.”

***

He takes her at a quick lope through the sublevels. Past the cold storage where they store the decoy bodies, through a little used passage behind the incinerator that slopes up to merge with the level above it, and down the hall where he kept Lisa, keeping his eyes averted the entire time. In his ear static crackles before busting to life in a rush of gunfire and snarling.

“Tell me you’re almost here Ianto, cause some backup would be _really_ good right now!” Jack is panting across the line, voice tight over the steady roar of rapid fire and the sharp metal sound of spent casings.

“We’re almost there Jack. Two minutes, can you buy us that?” They’re moving in a sprint now towards the far left corridor that leads off to the cell block.

“Yeah. Yeah, I can do two.” He doesn’t like the way Jack says that and from the way Cheyenne speeds up, matching her long legs to his until they’re tearing through the dim halls side by side neither does she. The connection drops as suddenly as it came, leaving them with just the sound of their shoes on the concrete.

“That’s the cell block ahead.” The massive steel door is straight ahead. “Watch my back, go in high.”

“Yep.” She puts on a burst of speed, rushing past him to put her back to the wall beside the door, gun up and sighted at the hallway behind him as he skids to a stop next to her, slinging the rifle over his shoulder and pulling out the semi-automatic pistol as he keys in the override with one hand. The lock disengages with a hiss and Ianto kicks the door open, ducking low as Cheyenne swings the rifle over his head and sweeps the hall.

“Damn you’re good at this.” The weevils are howling and screeching in response to the flickering emergency lights and the muffled warble of the sirens, battering against the doors of their cells. Ianto slides forwards in a crouch, clearing space for Cheyenne before slamming the door behind them and locking it down again.

“James used to make me practice with him once I knew. Oddly enough, I think this is _almost_ exactly what he was envisioning.”

“Oh my god, Ianto!?” He holsters the gun in his hand, running towards the sound of Tosh’s incredulous voice. There’s a huge bruise on her face, curving down from the hollow of her temple under a split across her cheekbone and down to her jaw and there’s blood in her hair.

“Wait, the tea-boy is here?” Ianto slips his fingers in through the air holes of the door to the cell holding Tosh, clutches her fingers tight in brief reassurance.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, the Calvary has arrived.” Cheyenne slides past him, already slapping her lock pick against the door to Owen’s cell. “Right. Jack needs backup. I have to go.” Ianto pulls out the guns tucked into the holsters on his hips, setting one on the floor in front of Tosh’s cell, and the other in front of Gwen’s. “I’m locking you all back in so no one sneaks up on you until you’re all out. Take these, get to the armory. Grab backups and get up to the work floor, cause it sounds like Hell in there.” He’s already back at the door, setting it to relock as soon as it has latched.

“And what the fucking hell do we do with the civilian while we do that? No offense luv.” Owen sounds livid as he smacks against the glass.

“You _follow_ her, since she’s the one with the instructions!” He slings the rifle back around into a carry, cocked and ready as he wraps his hand around the door handle. “Besides, she’s not actually a civvie!”

Some things are always fun, even in the face of impending doom and Ianto thinks making cryptic comments at Owen and walking away will always be one of them. He slams the door closed behind him, cutting off the muffled sound of Owen cursing and takes off at a run for the back side of the main floor and Myfanwy’s aerie. The closer he gets the louder the sounds of fire given and returned echoes through the air. The alarms have stopped and already he can catch a whiff of cordite on the air with the metallic tang of blood.

The hallway he’s in, narrow, dark, and faintly damp, dumps out just feet from the ladder leading up to the highest catwalk and the massive alcove with the electrified gate that keeps the pterosaur confined during lockdowns. The line of sight to the ladder is blocked by the rift manipulator from most of the floor angles, which is good because Ianto is going to have to sling the rifle onto his back again to climb, leaving him defenseless for the next fifty feet straight upwards. The gun fire is moving further towards the other side of the cavernous room, Jack obviously drawing the invaders towards the autopsy bay regardless of the fact that he’ll be boxing himself in. Ianto keeps himself low to the ground and sprints for the metal ladder.

The rungs are slick under his sweating palms and he’s never been so glad to have sneakers on his feet as the rubber soles grip the smooth metal, propelling him skyward.  
His head is even with the catwalk before he can see down through the plate glass into the autopsy bay. Jack is backed against the cadaver drawers, Webley in one hand and Owen’s plasma scalpel in the other, making precise swings whenever one darts too close. The fact that he’s relying on the scalpel so much means he’s low on ammo and from the gleeful look on the snapping Ugarii, they know it. Ianto scrambles up onto the catwalk, stealth abandoned as he swings the rifle into position across his body, reaching up and opening his com.

“Duck.” He wonders if it’s the grin on Jack’s face as he drops into a crouch that warns them, or if they’re just not as dumb as Ianto would have liked, but they’re already diving as his finger squeezes the trigger. His bullet shatters the glass, raining shards down into Owen’s workspace, and taking one low in the side of the neck. “Fuck!” The wounded one drops low, overturning the steel gurney and barricading itself between Jack and the stairs as it’s crewmate drops to all fours and lopes up the stairs quicker than Ianto can track, slithering low to the ground and taking cover on the other side of the rift manipulator. “Shit. Jack, it’s out of my sight line. What do you want me to do?”

“Track it from the catwalk. I’ve got this one covered.”

He’s easing sideways along the metal grating, sighted and ready, when Myfanwy begins cooing and chortling from behind him.

“Not now cariad, daddy’s hunting monsters.”

“You let the dinosaur call you daddy? You are a sad strange little man.” Embarrassment has never felt so good as the rest of the team pour up from the main stairwell, Cheyenne tucked safely in the middle of them.

“Go fuck yourself Owen. Watch out, there’s one loose on the floor with you and one pinned down with Jack in the autopsy bay. Stay on that side of the rift manipulator or you’ll queer my shots.” Ianto watches them split into two teams, Toshiko and Cheyenne working their way slowly towards Jack, Owen and Gwen moving in tandem towards the upper floor of the main hub and the conference room.

When the movement comes, it’s too quick to track and Owen and Gwen are too far away. One moment Tosh and Chy are back to back at the head of the stairway, the next there’s a wet roar and Cheyenne is falling down the stairs in a heap, Tosh caught up in the huge black and spotted arms of one of the Ugarii.

“Drop your weapons! I can tear her throat out before you can fire!” There’s terror to the creature’s thick wet voice under the snarling rage. “You two stay where you are!” It’s small eyes dart rapidly around the room between Owen, who has yet to lower his pistol, and back to Ianto. “I will _kill_ her!” It gapes it’s jaw, and Ianto’s stomach twists in on itself as the secondary jaws snap forward, tiny razor sharp teeth grazing Tosh’s cheek and leaving a thin red line on her face. Below him Owen and Gwen drop their weapons, placing them carefully on the ground and kicking them forward. There’s a ruckus coming from the autopsy bay, screams and the sounds of glass breaking and metal being over turned.

This is every bad scenario that’s gone through his head since the moment he felt eyes on his back at the train station. Jack and Cheyenne are both down, out of sight and from the sound of it in desperate trouble and he’s useless. Stuck above and about to surrender his gun with nothing at his back but a pterosaur.

“Shit. I’m sorry Myfanwy.”

“Drop your weapon!” He can see the grimace on Toshiko’s face as it wraps it’s thickly muscled limbs tighter around her.

“I’m putting them down now!” The click of the chamber unloading is almost as loud as a shot in his pounding ears. The Ugarii cocks it’s head in a sinuous movement as Ianto carefully reaches behind his back.

“What are you doing!” Tosh can’t stop the tortured squeak she makes as the arms around her tighten again. From the autopsy bay come the sound of two shots and a shrill shriek that is very much Cheyenne before it cuts off in the middle.

“I’ve got more than one gun. I’m putting them all down. Show of good faith. We disarm, you let Toshiko go and you an walk out of here.” There are no codes for the gates to the aerie, just a simple toggle switch. On locks and electrifies the gates, off kills the power and opens them wide. “llysywod?” He keeps his face as still as possible, crooning under his breath as he draws his clutch piece slowly, brandishing it in the air before setting it on the walkway by the rifle. Behind him Myfanwy begins clacking her jaws in anticipation.

“What’s that sound?”

“My pterosaur. It’s a pet.” It’s a gamble and he’s betting their lives that the word means nothing to the monster holding Tosh. “Don’t worry about her. I’ve got one gun left. You’ll let Toshiko go when I put it down?” His fingers are on the switch and he’s got nothing left to lose.

“When you are unarmed, I will release her.” It’s as awful a liar now as it was on his television.

“Then we understand each other.” A shadow moves on the stairs and Ianto feels his heart skip two beats and resume at double time as he sees Jack creeping up the stairs on all fours in bare feet, the plasma scalpel clutched in his teeth so that he moves silently on just fingertips and toes. “And did _you_ understand _me_ , when I told you what I would do if you put so much as one more fucking mark on one of my team? _Did you fucking understand me?!_ Myfanwy!” The gate to the aerie is swinging open behind him, Myfanwy launching herself upwards with a ringing scream that draws the Ugarii’s attention, paralyzing it for just a moment.

A moment is all Jack needs. He launches himself from the top stair and the plasma scalpel flashes pale violet through the gloom before thick black ichor sprays the air and splatters Tosh across the face. The arms around her fall limp and she hits the ground rolling before the headless body collapses into its squiggling death throes behind her. Myfanwy lands lightly, already nudging at the still wriggling corpse, jabbing it with her boney beak a few times before clucking twice and tearing into it with gusto.

Below him Gwen is cheering and cursing through tears, strung out and terrified by her first hostile takeover by alien forces and Owen is already at Toshiko’s side, fingers fluttering quick but gently over the black and green bruising on her face before working down towards her ribs. They’re safe and they’ve won and Ianto knows he should go down, but it’s all he can do to stay on his feet and not scream.

“Hey!” Jack is standing under him, looking up and grinning. _Grinning_. “You gonna stay up there all night, because I have a _very_ unhappy camper down in autopsy who told me to come back with you or don’t come back at all, and she’s a hell of a shot so I kind of believe her.”

“She’s…she’s not..?” Jack smiles at him, something soft and faintly exasperated before reaching up and muttering into his ear piece.

“If someone doesn’t come get this dead ass thing off me right the fuck now, I’m gonna start flipping tables and breaking shit down here, I swear to Christ!”

***

He doesn’t remember getting off the catwalk. One minute he’s clutching the railings white knuckled, the next he’s on the floor in the autopsy bay, kneeling in a pile of broken glass and blood, stroking her head as Jack and Owen roll more than three hundred pounds of alien off of Cheyenne.

“Look at this grouping, I can bloody see through it’s chest!” Owen is poking excitedly at the ragged hole the diameter of a teacup in the center of the corpse with a broken piece of pipe. “Jesus, who taught you to shoot?”

“My daddy. Oh this is not fun at all.” Her arms are crossed over her middle, face turned into Ianto’s thigh as he strokes her hair, picking slivers of glass out of it.

“I know. It’s okay. Owen’s almost as good at his job as he is rude.” It’s making him nervous, how gentle the doctor is being as he moves her hands away from her abdomen, settling them on Ianto’s knee before quickly slipping her buttons free, spreading her bloody and ruined shirt open.

“Don’t listen to him sweetheart, I am _exactly_ as good at my job as I am rude, which is very good news for you as even _I_ knows what a bastard I am. Feel free to punch Ianto if it hurts. If you get him in the face, I’ll find a lolly somewhere to give you.” His fingers skate, long and pale, over the curve of her ribcage down to the soft skin of her stomach, poking and prodding as he speaks. She doesn’t punch, but her nails do digs into his thigh as Owen presses firmly at the bottom of her ribs. “There’s the problem. Looks like that bastard may have bruised a couple of your ribs, and you’re gonna have a hell of a black and blue on your back.”

“Yeah, that would be from getting chucked down the fucking stairs. Jesus, I feel like I’ve been in a car crash.”

“Good.” Jack reaches over and rubs her shoulder gently. “Because come tomorrow, that’s what you’re going to think happened.”

“You’re just going to retcon her? After she just saved our collective arses?” Gwen is standing at the top of the stairs, arms crossed belligerently even as she stares at Jack incredulously.

“He is unless he wants an ass kicking.” Chy sounds exhausted. Ianto reaches down, lacing his fingers with hers. “Darlin, what on _earth_ makes you think I want to walk out of this remembering the past day and a half? I am _not_ an alien hunter. Trust me, he’s offered me a job and everything and I turned it down. I’m not even done with my doctorate yet and I’d like to go home and finish that. I am ready for my little red pill or whatever it is, preferably if it comes with a side of codeine.”

“Well, how about codeine now and Retcon in a few hours?” Jack stands slowly, dusting glass off his coat. “It’ll take a while to set up the traffic accident you and Ianto got into on your way back from the train station. Let Owen take care of you, okay?” She looks over at Jack and there’s something in her expression that makes Ianto wonder what he missed in the autopsy bay during the standoff upstairs.

“Codeine? Bah. How about some morphine instead sweetheart?” She chuckles and moans almost in the same breath, tears in her eyes.

“Wow, nothing but the good stuff from you, huh?” Owen crosses the floor, digging out one of the green topped vials from Ianto’s old store and filling a syringe with smooth movements.

“What can I say? I’m a big fan of hot women who rescue me. Little pinch and things should start feeling pretty damn good in just a second.”

“Cold inside, cold inside...yep, there’s the feeling good.” Her voice evens out and then lightens to something floaty and soft. “Oh that’s better.”

“Of course it is. All right, pick her up, get her upstairs and get her comfortable on the couch with Tosh. I’ll be up in a bit to do a better examination. You know, one where neither myself nor my work area is coated in alien blood.”

“Always something to whinge about, Owen.” Cheyenne giggles in his arms as Ianto tucks her against him, letting Jack take his elbow and help him smoothly to his feet. “Hey, want to see my dinosaur?”

“I’m pretty sure I’m already well acquainted with your dinosaur.” Gwen makes a squeaking noise from the top of the stairs and Jack shoves the side of his fist into his mouth, biting down on the knuckles to muffle his snickers as Ianto feels his face go red. Owen is not nearly as circumspect, sinking back down onto the floor to laugh.

“Of course you’re one of those. Can’t handle your morphine?”

“Not at all!” She flails her arm, smacking Jack in the back of the head before curling it up around Ianto’s neck.

“Well, how about I show you my actual pterosaur as opposed to my dick?” He deserves a medal for not kicking either Jack or Owen on his way to the stairs.

“But I like your dick, it’s pretty fantastic, isn’t is Jack?” Owen sounds like he’s literally choking on his cackling.

“And on that faintly mortifying note, let’s go see if the pterosaur is done eating, shall we?”

***

Myfanwy may not be done eating, but she’s at least moved the body somewhere else, leaving just a slick black trail that Ianto steps over carefully.

“There are our heroes.” Tosh is propped up against the far arm of the couch, face tight with pain. Ianto settles next to her when Cheyenne shows absolutely no interest in unwrapping her arms from around his neck.

“You look like you need some of what this one had.”

“Your friend Owen has _morphine_ and Jack is going to fake a car accident for me.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “I don’t _want_ a fake crash like James got.” Tosh exchanges a loaded look with him over Cheyenne’s bowed head and leavers herself onto her feet with a wince.

“I think I’ll go see about getting something myself.” He opens his mouth to stop her, but Tosh is already moving away with slow careful steps.

“A fake crash? It’s all he can think to say.

“Fake crash. He went to work one day and three days later they brought me a fucking flag. Like I wanted a flag instead of my husband and I don’t know what happened.” She keeps her face pressed into his shoulder, her fingers twisting his hair too tightly as she speaks. Her voice is starting to slide from floaty to groggy. “I don’t have the _security clearance_ for it. I buried an empty box.”

“Oh, Chy.”

“I need a nap.” Of all the things covered in blood or trash, the afghan across the back of the couch isn’t one of them. Ianto swings his legs up on the couch and pulls it over them, smoothing it across her back.

“Go ahead and take one. I’ll wake you up in time to say goodbye.”

“But not to you, right? Just to the rest of them?” Her voice is small and flat in a way that says she doesn’t believe it.

“Just to the team.”

He’s not sure if he believes it either.

***

“Pst, Ianto!” Gwen is looking over her shoulder as she eases up to the couch. Jack and Tosh are busy at the newly unlocked stations forging footage of a traffic accident and all the accompanying paperwork. She has a tablet clutched in her hands. “Ianto, pet, my favorite…”

“Oh god Gwen, what did you do?” Her face is pink under the sweat and grime that she hasn’t stopped to wash away. Her lip is split and Ianto wonders if the embarrassed grin she can’t hold back hurts.

“I can’t figure out the bloody automatic inventory system. I can’t get the totals to match no matter how I put the things in. We ended up with twenty pallets of copy paper and two rolls of toilet paper Tuesday, and nothing from Owen’s orders have arrived yet…”

“You’re kidding.” A shuddery sigh of relief escapes the woman as Ianto reaches around Cheyenne and snatches the tablet from Gwen, grimacing in dismay at the jumble of numbers in incorrect columns. “Gwen-bloody-Cooper, what on God’s green Earth have you done to my inventory system!”

“Keep it down! Can you fix it?”

“I think so.” He _thinks_ he knows what she’s done wrong, and if he’s right it will be a pretty simple fix, but it’s going to take a minute to prove it. “Look, until I get back, don’t touch this again. I’ll just make time to do a hand count for the inventory. Just order direct to the vendors by phone and then scan the receipts and file the hard copies. I’ll add it all in correctly when I get back, all right?”

“You are my hero…”

“Ahem.” Ianto flicks his eyes up at Jack, arms crossed as he struggles to keep a straight face where he’s staring down Gwen who is fidgeting like a naughty puppy. “Gwen, why does Ianto have your computer?”

“Damnit Jack, he just ran around with full access to the building armed up like a bloody mercenary and we never _blinked_. If he can ride to the rescue, he can help me figure out the bloody inventory!” It’s hard to keep a straight face in the presence of Gwen’s exhausted indignity. “We’re out of toilet paper Jack! I had to bring my own the other day!” Jack loses the battle with amusement. He laughs long and hard until he’s red in the face and Cheyenne is blinking dazedly up at him from Ianto’s shoulder.

“Gwen, I actually _wanted_ to know what Ianto was doing on the computer.” His eyes are still crinkled at the corners in amusement. “I was going to ask him to take a look at the mess you made of the toilet paper too.”

“Oh.”

“Go help Owen finish filling out the hospital work for these two, and then go ahead and head out. I bet that boyfriend of yours is looking for you.” Jack shakes his head as Gwen slinks away before crouching down next to the couch, brushing the back of his knuckles over the arch of Cheyenne’s cheekbone. “Hey there kiddo. Owen wants me to do a couple tests, just to make sure you’re gonna be okay to take the retcon. Can you tell me how you’re doing?”

“Well, I’d do better if you’d stop calling me kiddo. You can’t be more than five or six years older than me.” Jack’s fingers are busy checking a slowly swelling lump at the edge of her hairline that Ianto hadn’t even noticed.

“You would be amazed actually.” In his arms Cheyenne stiffens for a moment before slumping against him with a shudder. It’s weird enough that Ianto looks back from the tablet to her closed eyes and the strange smile on the corner of Jack’s mouth that flickers like a lightening strike before disappearing. “All right, see the light on the back of my wrist strap? Look directly into it.”

“Jack, I have to ask. _How_ are we out of toilet paper? I had _just_ put in a papers order a few days earlier.”

“That was Owen’s fault.” The machine on Jack’s wrist beeps twice and he drops his arm, fidgeting with the tiny touch screens. “He brought one of the pallets of stock up and left it in the middle of the floor when a rift alarm went off and your dinosaur came down and shredded roughly half a ton of toilet paper, coffee filters, paper towels, and napkins before taking a quarter of it back to her nest.”

“Myfanwy!” She’s hanging upside down from the far catwalk, one teacup sized eye kept firmly on the couch. She clacks her jaws twice, crooning a low hiss deep in her throat. “Stop stealing! No Paper! Be ashamed!”

“Holy shit, did that dinosaur just put it’s head under it’s wing?” Cheyenne sits up so fast she almost knocks the computer out of his hand.

“Oh yes. Funny scientific fact, pterosaurs are about as smart as your average parrot. She’s quite bright. Very trainable, actually. Got it.” He taps the command for calculate and watches as the inventory list reverts back to it’s last correct form. “Jack, don’t let anyone touch this. Tell Gwen what you need and she’ll call the vendors. The numbers are in my PDA. Make sure she remembers to copy and then file all the receipts with you. Also, I put in a rush order for paper goods. You‘ve paid one hell of a surcharge, but someone can take the truck to pick up a reship of our last order by noon.”

“You, Ianto Jones, are a scholar and a gentleman, and _you_ Ms. Morgan are cleared for a thirty-six hour dose of retcon on the condition that if seeing Ianto again triggers a failure of the memory block you understand that I’ll be back for the entire time and he won’t be able to see you again.”

“That…that’s really fair of you Jack. Thank you.”

“Don’t worry about it. You’ve got about an hour before we’re done. Ianto…I’m gonna have to wreck your car.” Ianto grits his teeth and groans.

“Of course you are. Hell, I think I burnt out my gearbox e-braking into the loading bay anyway.”

“Well, line of duty covers your mechanic and the rental. I’ll have it towed to the regular shop in the morning. Swing by and he’ll have your replacement ready. Why don’t you go ahead, give her the ten cent tour until we’re done.” Jack stands and plucks the tablet out of Ianto’s hands. “I’m pretty sure there’s still chocolate in your desk.”

“Chocolate?” The morphine must be burning off quickly, because Cheyenne winces as she sits up straight.

“It’s my secret dinosaur training weapon. Come on, give her an entire bar and she’ll be your friend for life.”

***

Myfanwy is surprisingly shy of Cheyenne, shuffling side to side and taking the chocolate from her hand in small snaps only if Ianto reaches up and scratches at the soft skin at the base of her skull ridge while she eats it. Mostly she’s too busy preening Ianto’s hair with her huge beak, scolding him in low rumbling chortles and thumping him in the back with her huge head every time he tries to walk away.

“I’m surprised she’s not trying to feed the chocolate back to you.” Cheyenne is vastly amused, sitting on the edge of his desk, watching him standing on a stepping stool to scratch at the beasts huge head.

“Sometimes she tries when she’s feeling broody. She’ll fly in and drop all sorts of foul things on my desk. It’s why I don’t even keep a desktop setup on the main floor. Mostly I work out of the archives a few levels down, I’ve got an office down there.” Under his hands the pterosaur’s skin is warm and soft as Ianto coaxes her to extend her wings, running his hands along the membranes checking for any injuries that he was unable to examine in the aftermath of her disastrous battle with Lisa. There are several small cuts that look well on their way to healing scattered across her hide, bruises up and down her squat torso, and one large gash near the top of her stubby tail that has Owen’s distinctive stitching over the pale grey flesh knitting under it. “Oh, my poor girl. You got all banged up? Did you get hurt?”

“Aww, what happened?” Myfanwy has finally settled enough to allow the girl to reach up, scratching the ridge above her eye.

“She got between Lisa and the rest of us, gave us time to get away.” It’s true enough for what it is, and Ianto has to admit that had she not been trapped behind the electric gate of her aerie until Jack over rode it, that she would probably have attacked Lisa anyway, even without Jack and the barbeque sauce.

“Wow, you were _really_ going through some shit when I met you.”

“Yeah, but it’s starting not to feel like the end of the world any more.” He laughs. “Nothing like being constantly under threat to make you want to work through your shit.”

“You are disgustingly well adjusted under your crazy, Jones.” Owen is standing next to the rift manipulator, hands in his lab coat. “All right, stop making our guard dog fat on candy and say good bye. It’s time.”

“Wow…I’m scared.” There’s a tremble to her voice as she looks at Ianto with too bright eyes and an overly wide smile. “Like, I’m _really_ scared to do this now.”

“Don’t be.” Jack is on the stairs from the kitchen area, cup in one hand, small white pill in the flat of his other palm. “We know this drug better than anyone, make it right here in house. Nothing is going to go wrong. Here, we’re not allowed to touch Ianto’s coffee machine, but have some cocoa, get yourself together, and when you’re ready, take this.”

Ianto shoos Myfanwy away with a muttered command and crosses the few short feet to sit next to Cheyenne on the desk as she wraps her hands gratefully around the steaming mug, drinking deeply before coming up for air with a smirk.

“It’s already in the hot chocolate, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Jack shrugs, but the smile on his face doesn’t reach his eyes. “But you’ll still want this for the headache you might have when you wake up.”

“Then come here. I have something to tell you before I forget.” Even as close as he is, Ianto can’t hear what she whispers when Cheyenne wraps her fingers in Jack’s suspenders, pulling him down until her mouth rests against the shell of his ear. It can’t be bad though, since Jack is chuckling.

“Good to know. It was a pleasure working with you Cheyenne.”

“You too. If you ever need any translation help after I finish my doctorate, I might feel differently about your offer once I’ve finished putting some space between my life then and now.” Her voice is already slowing, even as she places the pill on her tongue and tips the mug up, draining the rest of the warm liquid.

“I might just do that. You’re going to go to sleep now, and I’ll swing by the hospital tomorrow to make sure the retcon is holding.” Ianto reaches out, wrapping his arms around her as the drug begins to kick in, plucking the empty mug from her slackening fingers.

“Don’t fight it, just go to sleep. I’ve got you, and I’ll be there when you wake up.” Her body is warm and loose as it slumps in his arms; her head heavy as she rests it on his shoulder, rolling it up to whisper in his ear.

“If this were another time for me, I might want to keep you.” He rests his cheek against the top of her head, feeling the rasp of two days stubble catching against her hair.

“If it were another time for me, I might want to let you.”


	15. Chapter 15

Gwen is kind enough to swing by his flat and pick him up a spare set of clothes and bring them back to the hospital for him to change into while he waits for Cheyenne to wake up. Jack has pulled strings with their man on the board at Cardiff Royal to settle Cheyenne in a private room and make it look as if they’ve been transferred from the Heath.   
She looks smaller in the bed, but Ianto is starting to think that hospital beds have their own brand of magic that do that to people. The illusion of delicacy isn’t helped by the large plaster the nurse has placed over the lump on her head, or the IV that’s slowly flushing the last traces of sedative out of her blood stream.

Gwen grabbed one of his Bond novels off the book shelf when she did a run to his flat and Ianto is fidgeting with it as he watches the girl sleeping on the bed, eyes intent on every hitched breath and twitching finger, waiting for her to begin waking.  
Relief swamps him when her eyes flutter once and crack slowly, looking at him with a dazed stare of pain and confusion.

“Ianto?”

“Hey.” Her fingertips are cold when he perches lightly on the edge of the bed, lifting her hand into his. “How are you feeling?”

“Like baked shit gone stale. What…what happened? Am I, I’m in the hospital?” Her reactions are too genuine for anyone to object to. A knot Ianto didn’t know he was carrying in his chest lets go.

“Yeah. You’re okay, that’s what important. What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Being on the train.” She tries to sit up before Ianto can stop her and drops back to the bed with a small cry, reaching for her midsection. “Ow!”

“Let me get you a doctor. Just lay back, okay?” He half stands, scanning the floor for the doctor that’s been cleared to work with them.

“Was there…an accident on the train?” The doctor is coming down the hall looking flustered, Jack at her heels. “Did the train crash?”

“No, you and I did. We got broadsided downtown on the way back to the hotel.” He’s spared having tell her she’s lost two days to a staged wreck by the door to the room swinging open.

“Ms. Morgan, welcome back.” Ianto puts her hand down, stepping away from the bed and joining Jack next to the door. The examination seems to drag on, the doctor running Cheyenne through a series of questions and explaining what happened according to the falsified information she has. It’s a tight looming agony, forcing himself not to watch Jack watching Cheyenne for any hints of the retcon not holding.

“She looks good.” Relief is a heady thing, making Ianto light headed and weak-kneed, forcing him to slouch back against the wall. His shoulder brushes Jack’s when he slumps.

“Good.” On the bed Cheyenne is taking in the doctor’s tale with stunned eyes, nodding in all the right places and looking lost. “I should get over there.”

“Yeah.” Jack claps his hand down on Ianto’s shoulder and squeezes. “There’s still a lot of work to do, so I’ll stop by in a couple hours, make sure everything’s still going well.” He lifts the hand from Ianto’s shoulder and gives the woman on the bed a small wave before slipping out the door, leaving Ianto to cross the white tile floor and take her hand as the doctor tells them both how lucky they were and scolds Cheyenne for wearing her seat belt improperly.

“Next time, make sure the strap is over your shoulder properly and not under your arm and you won’t end up with trauma like that across your ribs.” The woman tucks her hair behind her ear as she stands, her fingers drumming anxiously on Cheyenne’s chart. Jack’s going to have to retcon her as well once Chy has been released, Ianto knows the signs of someone who’s weirded out and willing to dig for answers and this doctor is showing every single one of them. She makes noise about releasing Cheyenne before dinner and disappears out the door.

“Wow, she drinks _entirely_ too much coffee. So, T-boned huh?”

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am you got hurt with me.” It’s a subtle redirect, an attempt to keep the details minimal and uncomplicated.

“I guess the other guy ran a light, that’s not your fault.” There are little nicks and cuts on her face and arms from the shattered glass that covered the autopsy bay floor that he didn’t see under all the other blood and dirt last night. “Wasn’t Jack just here?”

“Yeah. He wanted to check on us. He’ll be back again later, he’s picking up a rental for me.” She smiles at him, even though it probably pulls at the bandages on her face.

“I’m starting to think you drive about as well as you cook.”

“Again with the insults.” A nurse sticks her head in the door as he’s bending down to kiss Chy, a trolley before her.

“I bring the gift of painkillers!” She’s even younger than Ianto, her black hair with bright green stripes up in pigtails and gages in her ears. There are even little skeletal animals on her black scrubs that have him biting the corner of his mouth not to laugh. “Trust me, if you’re going home later, you’ll want one last dose of the good stuff. Doctor Smythe will be back later to release you, but no going home alone for twelve hours. You took a pretty nasty hit to the head to sleep for two days. Good thing you have such a hottie to keep you company, am I right? I‘m Anwyn, ring me out at the nurses station if you need anything.” Her small pale hands are quick as she adjusts the drip on Cheyenne’s iv, fluffs her pillows, and disappears back out the door with a smile and a wink.

“Oh, please tell me the cute happy goth wasn’t my nurse the whole time, because I may sink into a bottomless depression if I missed two days of that.”

“You did not sleep through two days of happy goth nurses. This is the first time I’ve seen her. Budge over.” The bed is far more comfortable that Ianto thought it would be as he sits on the side and swings his legs up, rearranging the lines leading off her monitors to make room for her to snuggle into his side.

“I should tell you…morphine makes me goofy and tired. I may begin a long and rambling ramble on how I hate cats.” It’s already hitting, her voice trailing into a higher register.

“You don’t say?” This is much more fun without shocky jolts of left over adreline and fear pumping through him.

“Oh yes. Can’t stand the fucking things. Cats are only good to look at in other people’s homes. They like to half kill rodents and then leave the stunned things in my bed. I was attacked by a crippled chipmunk once.”

“That‘s awful.” He tips his head down, hiding his grin in her hair.

“I don’t like chimpunks either.”

“Chipmunks?” His voice is tight with trying not to laugh because she is so very serious.

“Or those.”

“Or those. Why don’t you just cuddle in and take a nap until the doctors come round to spring you?”

“I _do_ like naps.” The urge to laugh is melting into something warmer inside him as Ianto lets himself sink more comfortable down into the bed, cradling her against himself and tugging the loose woven blanket up to her chin so she can burrow into it the way she does at his flat.   
With everything at the Hub settled and the retcon holding, Ianto doesn’t mind admitting to himself that a nap doesn’t sound like such a bad idea after all.

***

“Ianto. Ianto wake up. Some one has snuck in here and assailed me with flowers.” He wakes slowly, brain foggy and set to stand down at the amused and unstressed tone of voice worming its way into his ears.

“Who did what?” His eyes are squeezed shut against the bright hospital lights, but despite his best efforts to stay asleep he’s noticing the sweet and spicy floral notes covering over the scent of antiseptic and disinfectant. Pulling his face back from where it’s resting on her hair Ianto cracks one blue eye slowly and then blinks before opening both because he must be hallucinating.

He’s not.

The white room he fell asleep in has been exchanged for a small personal florist shop. There are jumbles of red and yellow roses in vases by the door, low dishes with greenery and hydrangeas on the table under the television, and on the table by the bed a small brown bear with a bandage on its head looks like it’s being crushed to death in its wicker basket by the weight of the white and pink jumble of roses, stargazers, and calla lilies piled around it.

“Oh, this is ridiculous!” Jack is standing in the doorway, hands full with coffee, eyes rolled in exasperation as he looks around the room. “When I went to the florist and said I wanted all of them, I actually meant I wanted all of the flowers smushed into one bouquet. How are you guys doing?”

“Well it‘s a good thing they didn‘t listen. That would have been hideous. Also, if one of those coffee’s is not mine I will be the unhappiest man in all of Wales.”

“Can’t have that.” Jack smiles at him as he presses the warm travel cup into Ianto’s hands and it feels good to smile back.

“Well, thank you for enough flowers to cheer up everyone on this floor. Aw, I got a teddy and he’s brown and wounded just like me!” She rescues the soft bear from the flowers slowly crushing it further down into the basket.

“Huh, look at that, you do. Don’t remember picking that out.” Jack shrugs and slurps at his coffee. “So, I thought you should know Ianto was driving a company car when the two of you were hit, so our insurance is covering your care and stay at the hospital.”

“Oh. That…really? That’s quite generous of you Jack, thank you.” She grins at them as she tucks the stuffed toy under her chin. “Guess that answers the question of you guys being smugglers. Not too many coke dealers with that kind of full collision coverage.”

“No, no there aren’t.” Jack leans back in the hard chair and continues drinking his coffee. “Ianto, here are the keys to your rental and the ticket for the car park. You’re ground floor, five spaces down from the door. I drove it over here, so hope you don’t mind if I stick around for a while. Owen should be by to pick me up soon.”

“Good. If you’re sticking around, I want coffee too. An iced mocha latte, large, two sugars, four extra shots, no whipped cream. Where’s my purse?”

“Don‘t worry about it, I‘ll get it.” Jack is moving to stand as a knock on the door draws their attention.

“Ms. Morgan?” It’s the doctor again. “Ah, gentlemen. If you don’t mind, I need to do one last examination before I declare Ms. Morgan ready to leave?”

“I’m going to go with Jack to get your coffee. We’ll be right back.” She’s already tipping her head back expectantly as Ianto leans forward, brushing his mouth softly against hers before sliding off the bed and following Jack out into the hallways.

“Well, looks like it took just fine. Nothing after seeing you or me.” Jack’s mutter is low under the busy sounds of the hospital hallways as they make their way to the Starbucks next to the gift shop.

“Good.” There’s not much else to say about it as he follows Jack’s broad wool covered back through the halls as they wander in the directions of the painted arrows labeled coffee painted on walls and hanging from high ceilings.

By the time they get back to her room, loaded down with her coffee and several slices of pound cake that looked too good for Ianto to pass up on an empty stomach, Owen is sprawled in the visitor’s chair, flipping through Cheyenne’s chart.

“You try too hard Harkness, it looks like a color blind gardener’s greenhouse in here.”

“I take no responsibility for this. I just gave the man a credit card number.”

“And bad instructions apparently. Come on then, the grind waits for no man, boss or not. Pleasure to see you again Cheyenne, Ianto…learn to drive.” Ianto smiles sharply at him, hoping the expression properly conveys that his vengeance will be swift and decaffeinated. It must not because Owen looks too pleased with himself as he settles the clipboard back at the foot of the bed and goes to lean against the door.

“He’s right. Lots to get done. Cheyenne, I hope I see you again before you go.”

“I’m sure you will. Apparently I’m not supposed to go back to the hotel alone tonight, so if Ianto doesn’t mind, I‘ll see you when you drop the mail off in the morning.”

“No, of course I don’t mind.” He hands her the coffee and a bag with both plain and lemon pound cake slices in it, sitting down to dig out his own slice of lemon. “Guess we’ll see you in the morning Jack?” He can’t keep the questioning lilt out of his voice, can’t keep from thinking about the last time Jack was at the flat.

“Guess you will.”

“If you could manage to tear yourself away from the burgeoning love triangle leaking sexual tension all over the floor before I step in it, that would be great Jack.” Cheyenne tries to hide her grin behind the fall of her hair and the act of sipping at her drink, but Ianto can still see it from the corner of his eye as he scowls at Owen.

“I’m thinking _very_ seriously about firing you right now Owen. Come on, let’s go. Ianto. Cheyenne.” Her straight face lasts exactly until Jack shoves Owen between the shoulder blades, forcing the smaller man to trip over his own feet. The laugh that bubbles out of her is long and loud.

“Oh, how do you do it? Working with them must me like being caught in a walking slapstick.” Ianto grins, remembering the last round of alien tech prank wars that ended with Jack and Owen both bright orange and speaking backwards for twenty minutes.

“You have no idea.”

“I feel pretty good, you know? I mean, yeah, my ribs hurt kinda…but I feel _really_ good for someone who whacked their head hard enough to be out for a couple of days.” She sucks meditatively at her straw. “Maybe I needed the rest? And I don’t know what the hell happened to you, but you must have needed a rest too because you look great sweetheart.” She reaches up, flicking his hair back out of his eyes. “You’re smiling.”

“Am I?” He guesses he must be, because Cheyenne is giving him a fondly exasperated glare. “I’m pretty sure you’ve seen me smile.”

“Once or twice, if someone said something funny. Not just because you looked happy.” Her thumb brushes at the corner of his mouth. “I’m glad I got to see it.”

“Yeah,” he nips at the digit touching him. “I am too.”

***

Checking out of the hospital is quicker than he thought it would be, and traffic is light on the way back to his flat. Cheyenne is moving gingerly by the third floor, enough that she doesn’t bother protesting much when Ianto picks her up outside of Kai’s door and carries her up the last flight to his door.

“Wow, it looks _awesome_ in here!” He’d forgotten in the rush of everything that just a couple days ago he had scrubbed down and redone the entire flat. It _does_ look good, settled and inviting. Ianto takes a moment to pause in the doorway and look over the room with fresh eyes, trying to see it the way Cheyenne is. The plants in the windows are doing great despite being abandoned for a few days, always good to know, and the paintings on the walls are broken up with clustered photos of his family and friends. It feels like home.

“Yeah. It actually is pretty nice, isn’t it?” He settles her on the couch and ducks back down to the car for the one arrangement of flowers she kept before heading into the kitchen. Food sounds good.

“So you and Jack made up, didn’t you?” There’s chicken in the fridge from the day he made stir-fry that needs to be used, but he thinks he picked up everything he needs for a tikka masala.

“Things are better.” He’s pulling out ingredients, dropping them on the counter. “We made time to talk some things out. It was that noticeable?”

“Well, the lack of blanketing rage in the air between the two of you was a hint. Also, you have a hickey on your neck that’s too big to be from me.” He slams his head into the bottom of the freezer door jerking upright and ends up standing by the fridge with one hand on his throat and the other on the back of his head, cursing loud and restraining the urge to hop around or kick the fridge.

“Chy…”

“Stop. Ianto, darlin, you have known me ten days now and I spent two of those out of town and the next two unconscious. You don’t owe me anything and if working things out with Jack is making this big of a difference, I can walk out that door smiling because I _like_ you kiddo.” He’s frozen in place, still clasping the back of his head and staring at the woman sprawled out on his couch in borrowed scrub bottoms and the sweater he’d been wearing over his tee shirt at the hospital. “I think you’re a great guy, I’m surprisingly amused by Jack, even if he can be a dick and if he does this to you I‘m fine to go…”

“ _You_ did this to me.” He’s rounding the bar in long strides to kneel next to the couch, catching her face in his hands. “Two weeks ago I was sitting in the dark from the time I woke up until I went to bed. If I moved, it was for more alcohol. Jack isn’t the one who made me want to get my shit together so I didn’t look like a drunk hobo. I didn’t nut up and make myself start functioning on a normal human level to try and impress Jack, and he might have been stuck watching me wreck everything I had left, but _you_ have helped put me back together, okay?” There are tears in her eyes and Ianto brushes his thumb across the thin skin over her cheekbones. “You came out of nowhere, just the right place at the right time to make me get my shit together and it would hurt a lot if you left any sooner than you have to because of Jack and I, so don’t, okay?” He leans forward, pressing his forehead to hers. “Please?”

“Okay.” She wraps her arms around him tightly, twists her fingers in his shirt and holds on.

It’s gonna hurt when it’s time to let go.

***

Her phone rings as they’re eating.

“Hello?” The masala is good and spicy and despite her teasing the entire time he stood at the stovetop Cheyenne is threatening to stab his hand with her fork every time Ianto moves to steal a bite of hers with the extra chilies cut up on top of it. He manages to take two bites from her plate that have his mouth stinging before Ianto realizes that she’s no longer protecting her plate, too busy grinning widely at the phone in her hand. “Of course. No, it’s no problem at all, I’d be thrilled! Yes, of course, send it through. Thank you so much. You too.” She drops the phone and it’s only his quick reflexes that saves her plate from toppling off her lap and onto the floor. “I got the job! I got _better_ than the job actually. It’s an on site position!”

“That’s fantastic!” He lifts his beer in celebration, knocking the bottle against hers.

“I know. Apparently my skills will be ‘better utilized’ checking on a private research site being funded in Peru. I love Peru. They’re flying me right down.” Her voice softens as she takes a sip from her bottle. “I leave in three days.”

“Oh.” It’s three days earlier than he was braced for. Almost a week before he’s done with his probation.

“Yeah.”

“Well, it’s still good. That’s still three more days.” He sets his plate on the side table with hers, tugging her into his lap. “I’m going to miss you.”

“I’ve got a cell you know. Even in darkest Peru the Iphone will prevail.” She’s still vibrating with excitement and he can hear the grin in her voice.

“Technology _is_ pretty fantastic. So you’re going to call me, huh?”

“And you better call me too.” She jabs him in a bruise she doesn’t know is there, a blossoming spread of blues and greens from connecting with the warehouse floor. “And I’ll have to come back a couple times a year, live updates and shit like that. Maybe, you know, depending on how things are with you and Jack I could make room for a stopover in Cardiff when I’m in the country.” He can’t stop the laugh that’s building in his chest.

“I feel pretty certain that if Jack knows you’re back in town he’ll clear my schedule for me. Jack is lots of fun, but I don’t think he’d recognize monogamy if it walked naked past him in the street. He’d turn around for a second look though, just to make sure.” She giggles against him.

“I am so unsurprised. He’s _entirely_ too hot to not be easy as a Sunday afternoon.”

“Oh, that’s nice. If asked, there are people who would say you’re just a hot you know.” She squirms until she’s lying flush against him, her mouth inches from his.

“Well yeah, how do you think I know?” There’s a trace of chilies and beer still on her tongue as she kisses him, her busy fingers stroking the bruise left on the side of his throat from Jack’s mouth. “Confession time, that bite Jack left on you is crazy hot.” Hearing that is just as sexy the second time around, even if she thinks she’s saying it for the first time.

“Oh, well if we’re confessing, I’m thinking about hiding all your clothes as long as you’re in Cardiff so you have to wear mine.” He leans his head forward, nipping at the curve of her shoulder where the neck has slid down.

“Oh are you?” Her hands are sliding up underneath his shirt, nails scratching lightly across his skin. His sweater rides up her torso as he lifts his knees, cradling her body between them as she kisses him again.

“Maybe.” She slides off him and stands, wiggling out of the too large scrubs and letting them puddle around her feet, leaving her in just his sweater. The only place it comes close to fitting is where it clings to her breasts. The sleeves come down to the bottoms of her fingers, neckline canted to bare one shoulder and hem just brushing the middle of her thighs.

“So you’re saying if you get your way I’ll spend the next three days like this?” She squeals as Ianto lunges off the couch and grabs her around the waist, scooping her off her feet and crossing the floor to his room to drop her gently in the middle of the bed.

“If I had my way, you’d spend the next three days like _this_.” Cheyenne scoots up the bed and sprawls across the pillows, watching him as he strips off his shirt.

“Oh, we might be able to work out something along those lines…holy shit. Ianto!” Her sexy sprawl turns into a rapid crawl across the bed, her hands tight on his waist as she pulls him closer, gaping at the spread of green and purple across his side where he hit the warehouse floor. “That looks,”

“Much worse than it feels.” It’s true. He’s so used to walking off worse than this that unless she’s touched it, he hasn’t spared a thought to the bruising since it happened. Her hand are gentle as they trace the extent of it.

“I should hope so. Did you smack into the door?”

“Must have.” They’re starting to edge into the murky territory of altered memory where Ianto really doesn’t want to go. He cocks an eyebrow and reaches for his belt. “If you’re going to kiss it better I might be able to find some more.”

That does the trick. She laughs and raps his hand sharply, shooing him away from his belt buckle to take over the movement herself. She slides his jeans and boxer down as one, brushing her fingers over the bruise blooming on his hip as well.

“Well, there’s definitely some swelling there.” His breath catches as she drags her nails from the mark on his hip over to his cock. “Some here too. I think you may have said something about kissing it better?” Ianto lets his fingers sink into her hair as Cheyenne leans forward, brushing her lips across the head of his cock lightly. “Better now?”

“Not quite. I might need a bit more of that…” His words catch in his throat as she swirls the flat of her tongue over the head. “Oh. See, starting to feel better already.”

***

It’s raining outside when Ianto wakes up curled around the woman in his bed, the steady striking of water on glass and pale grey light trying to tempt him back to sleep. Cheyenne squirms against him as she wakes slowly.

“Morning.” Her words are slurred through a yawn. “Is it raining?”

“It is. Good and hard by the sound of it.” She hums low in her throat as he strokes his fingertips up and down her spine. “You sound like you’re looking to stay in bed.”

“I want to.” She stretches, every muscle in her trembling as she hyper extends her limbs, before slumping around him sudden and boneless as a cat. “I really want to, nothing better than sleeping in on rainy mornings, but I can’t. I’m flying out in two days. I need to get back to the hotel and start getting packed, check out the project specs that should be sitting in my inbox by now, and check on the regulations for bringing my dogs into Peru.”

“You have dogs?” Her fingers are stroking a matching pattern up and down his spine.

“I do, two Miniature Shar-pei. Of course miniature is deceptive as they’re thirty plus pounds apiece, but they’re smaller than the big guys. My boys are staying with my parents and Smith right now and they can’t stay there indefinitely. I think I just need to have their travel papers updated and certified by my back-up vet in Manasas. Which means I need to call and get them a priority appointment which I cannot do in bed with you because my address book is at the hotel.” She’s moving easier as she sits up, not as stiffly even if she’s still being careful about how she moves her body. “Where’s all my stuff, anyway?” Her face pales. “Did my laptop survive the crash?”

“It did.” It also stood up to the through data scrubbing Tosh did on every keystroke that had been entered since Ianto picked her up from the train station. “I’ve got all your stuff; it’s in the living room, in that little cubby space on the other side of the door.”

“Thank you.” Ianto rolls out of the bed with a groan, popping his back before shimmying into a pair of sleep pants.

“Here.” She takes the robe he holds out. “I’ll make coffee.”

She’s barely stepped into the shower when there’s a knock at the door. Ianto leaves his contemplation of making pancakes versus omelets to hurry across the floor, slinging the door open.

Jack is on the other side, the shoulders of his coat dark with rain, drops clinging to his partially flattened hair as he taps a fat stack of magazines and letters in his hand.

“Mail call.”

“Jack. Come in, get some coffee and dry off.”

“Thanks, I needed to talk to you actually. Officially. Where’s Cheyenne?”

“She’s in the shower…is this something I should be nervous about?” Jack follows him into the flat, shutting the door behind himself and shrugging out of his coat.

“Not at all.” Ianto grabs a tea towel off the dish rack and tosses it to Jack who begins drying his hair vigorously. “Even if I _was_ in the habit of punishing actions that save the team and take back our base, this incident never happened. This morning UNIT satellites picked up the Ugarii ship leaving our atmosphere after a fairly standard repairs stop. Hard to write you up on any of the fifteen or so regs you broke during an event that never happened. So, while we’re still under the official umbrella of no consequences, is there _anything_ else you have to tell me? Are you smuggling spaceships, maybe?” Ianto can’t bite back the smile that’s rising to answer Jack’s teasing grin.

“Nope. Thought about it, but just couldn’t figure out how to fit one in the moving van.” Jack’s barking laugh is long and loud, covering up the sound of the shower being turned off, but not of the bathroom door creaking open.

“Good morning Jack, I thought I heard you just now.” Cheyenne is leaning out of the ajar bathroom door, towel twisted up on the top of her head and another wrapped around her. “Is this a social visit, or should I go wash my hair again?”

“Don’t bother getting back in the shower for me, mostly I’ve just come round to tell Ianto he’s now officially off probation. Ready to come back Monday?” It’s a good thing he didn’t have his hands on the coffee yet, because Ianto’s pretty sure he would have dropped whatever he was holding. Jack looks thoroughly pleased with himself, of course he does, there’s nothing Jack Harkness likes more than being able to do the big dramatic moment, and Cheyenne is clapping for him from the bathroom doorway.

“Well that’s fantastic!” She disappears behind the still ajar door for a moment, and reappears wrapped in his robe. “I guess that’s both of us with vacations cut short by work, huh? Is the coffee ready?”

“Um, yes?” He grabs a mug and pours it, handing it to her. “Jack?”

“Do I _ever_ say no to your coffee?” The captain takes his with a sigh of pleasure, sipping it black and hot as Chy sits across from him at the table, still stirring sugar into hers. “So, I thought you still had almost a week in Cardiff, Cheyenne?” The genuine curiosity in Jack’s voice put laid any thoughts he might have had about Jack pulling any strings to hurry Cheyenne out of town in case the retcon tried to fail.

“So did I.” She leans back in her seat, crossing her legs and the robe falls open around her thighs as she drinks deeply. “I got a call last night. I’m flying out on the twentieth for Peru where I’m going to be doing some in the field translations for a private expedition. I should be getting dressed right now actually because I have a metric shit ton of things to get done and wrapped up before then and I need to do them back at the hotel where my things are. In fact, I _really_ need to get dressed, so if you’ll excuse me for a moment…” She tips her mug back, throat working in long swallows before setting it gently on the table and rising, crossing the room to the little alcove next to the door and grabbing her bags before disappearing into Ianto room. Jack is staring at her mug forlornly.

“Six ounces of really hot coffee in less than two minutes without a flinch. She would have fit right in.” Ianto can’t stop himself from rolling his eyes.

“You’ll find another linguist if we really need one Jack.” He keeps his voice low.

“Yeah, but what are the odds of finding another linguist as hot as her who already has the right skill set?”

“And what would that be?” He comes around the bar and drapes himself over Jack’s shoulder, breathing in that fantastic smell of his as he whispers in the older man’s ear. “The foreknowledge of aliens, their languages, or the willingness to sleep with both of us?” Jack turns his head and catches Ianto’s mouth in something too quick and dirty to just be a kiss.

“All of the above. That’s why I called it a skill _set_.” There’s an alarm from Jack’s wrist strap that has them both straightening. It‘s a message from the Hub. “But, Cheyenne isn’t the only one running late today apparently.” He stands and drains his own large mug, setting it on the table far less gently. “I was going to pull all the cameras while I was here, but I’ll have to come back for them later. There’s paperwork you need to fill out, I shoved it in your Rolling Stone to keep it dry. As soon as it’s filled out, you’re clear to come back on Monday.” Ianto has the greatcoat in his hands and Jack is half into it before either of them realize. It’s surprisingly not awkward to straighten it on the man’s shoulders and follow him to the door as Jack pauses and stretches around Ianto to bellow back into the flat. “Congratulations on your job Cheyenne!”

“Thank you!” Her voice is muffled by the closed door. Jack is out of the flat in two long strides and Ianto is closing up behind himself when the older man spins and sticks his hand in the door, pushing it back open and staring around the flat.

“Wait, when did you redecorate?”

“You’ve work to do Jack, we can talk about my spectacular eye for interior design later. Good-bye.”

***

He drops Cheyenne and her luggage off at the Royal half an hour later, watching as doormen rush out from under the awning to help her collect her ridiculous amount of baggage from his rental.

“So, I’ve been _not_ saying this the entire morning, but I’ll kick myself all day if I don’t say it now. You’re leaving the day after tomorrow and you’ve barely seen your room anyway so I was thinking,” Ianto takes a deep breath and tries to force down the flush rising on his face. “That if you’d like to, I’d really like it if when you’re done taking care of everything, obviously, you’d just come stay with me until you left.” The words spill out of him almost too fast, but she obviously understands because her cheeks pink for a second before Cheyenne leans over and kisses him.

“I think I’d like that. I’ll call you when I’m done here before I check out.” She slings the door open and steps out into the heavy rain, the drops turning her bright red coat dark around her shoulders as she closes the door and runs under the awning, hunched protectively over her laptop bag, pausing by the door as the doormen grab the last of her bag and waving at the car before disappearing into the lobby.

There’s four days worth of mail waiting for him on the bar when Ianto walks back into his flat. Bills, junk mail, three magazines, envelopes with his sister’s address on the return, and his reinstatement papers in a glossy white folder with the Torchwood logo on it in bright red tucked into the center of his Rolling Stone exactly where Jack said it would be. He leaves it there and takes the rest of the mail to his couch, flopping down on it and reaching for the carefully colored on envelope with his niece’s name in the upper left hand corner.

He fails to shake the contents out twice before realizing that it’s still sealed shut. _All_ his mail is still sealed and when he pulls out the birthday card his niece has very obviously made herself with cardstock and entirely too much glitter, he’s the first person to see it since Mica stuck it in the post box. The same with the letter from David stuffed inside a card where worms are trying to decide what end of the birthday worm to address. Ianto reads through them both slowly, enjoying every blocky letter and crayoned scrawl that he has to squint to make out before opening the one from Rhiannon. It’s inviting him to hers for a birthday dinner Sunday. Ianto grabs his phone and another cup of coffee when he gets up in search of a pen and his paperwork.

His sister picks up on the second ring.

“Hullo?”

“If it’s my birthday dinner I don’t want any veg at all. Not a single green thing to be seen.” Rhiannon laughs into his ear, loud and long.

“Hell of a role model you are Ianto Jones. I can’t not give the kids vegetables for dinner, it’s bad for them. You’re going to have corn and you’re going to eat it.”

“Oh, well corn is delicious. Doesn’t even count as veg really, once you put enough butter and salt on it.”

He flops back on the couch and opens the Torchwood folder, flipping through it as his sister fusses. It’s the fully sanitized version that makes no mention of cybermen, dead bodies, Cheyenne, or Ugarii. Jack’s signature, as big and bold as the man himself, is scrawled across five different places in the file and Owen has initialed twice as second in command. He just has to sign at the bottom next to the huge red X and he’s offically off probation and ready to return to the Hub Monday morning.

“…And it would serve you right if I made you liver and onions with sprouts.”

“Rhiannon, if you make me liver and onions with sprouts for my birthday I will never speak to you again, I swear to God.” She just cackles on her end of the phone and Ianto takes a deep breath and signs his name neatly next to Jack’s on the last page.

“Don’t be a baby. It’s to be pork chops with apples and corn on the cob; the same as it’s been every year since you were eleven.”

“Damn right it’s chops with apples.” He closes the folder and tosses it onto the side table with a sigh. “Rhi…what would you say if I said I met someone and I only did it because she was only here on holiday and it was just supposed to be easy and fun and over, but I think I really like her and she’s leaving for Peru Sunday morning?”

“I’d say I’ve never known anyone who makes things as hard on themselves as you do, you bloody idiot.” He can hear his sister roll her eyes. He can also hear her settling back on her own couch. “Is that why you’ve been too busy to call for almost a month?”

“Kind of?” It’s close enough to the truth to count.

“Idiot. Tell me about her then.”

***

Ianto has time to spend a leisurely two hours on the phone with his sister, shower, clean the bathroom, and have a late lunch before Jack knocks on his door again a quarter after four. He’s got a tool box in one hand and has several long metal carrying cases at his feet.

“How many trips up the stairs did you have to take?”

“Four.” Jack rolls his eyes as he brushes past Ianto, setting the red metal box and one of the cases up onto the bar. “You couldn’t have picked a first or second floor walk up somewhere? Could you just hand…oh, thanks.” Ianto already has three of the cases moved into the doorway and is leaning back out for the rest.

“That was pretty quick.”

“Yeah, just a couple of not un-expected phone conferences. Downing street, the palace, UNIT, SHIELD. All of them wanting to know why I hadn’t seen fit to let them know Torchwood had ships grounded in our jurisdiction, me trying to tell them all to go fuck themselves without actually telling her Majesty to go fuck herself.” Open, the cases each hold two cameras nestled safely in grey egg carton foam. Jack lays them all out on the bar before shrugging out of his coat and dropping it on a chair, followed by his over shirt. “And the rift is holding in a lull for now, maybe another week and a half or more before we see any predicted movement, so I’ve got us in a stand down until tomorrow. Give everyone a chance to rest. Would have done it yesterday, but we had an auto-pilot to set, bodies to dispose of, and high security areas to check on. We sorted the archives into piles, but no one really knows what goes where anymore.”

“Piles are good enough until Monday.” Ianto ducks into the storage room for his step ladder and Jack has a tool belt fastened low on his hips by the time Ianto returns, red suspenders bright against his tight white tee shirt. He hands Jack the ladder and doesn’t mention that the other man looks like some kind of handyman porn. Instead Ianto leans into the fridge and pulls out a beer, lounging against the bar and watching Jack check the hasty patch job Ianto did on it before beginning to unbolt the casing from the chimney stack.

“So, did you sign your papers yet?”

“Yep.” He reaches up and takes the bolts Jack hands down behind himself, slotting them into their space in the case before reaching up for the camera itself. “I’ll be glad to see the back of these things. You don’t think about how often you make your bed naked until there are cameras all over your flat recording it.”

“Well I, for one, will definitely miss the view, although I don’t remember much naked housekeeping.”

“I think you were otherwise occupied on naked laundry day.” Jack hops down off the ladder, boom arm in hand.

“Aw, see now I’m mad. They took me captive, poisoned me, _and_ made me miss naked laundry? Bastards.” Their fingers brush as Jack passes him the metal structure. The captain leans around him, almost close enough to be pressed against him as he folds the arm away.

“Jack…” The older man tilts his head slightly, watching Ianto through eyes full of heat and promise. “Oh, the hell with it.” He lets Jack press him against the bar, the edge digging into his back as the other man wraps around him. There’s probably nothing healthy about this, letting one night with Jack under stress toss him back into the same, likely self-destructive, pattern of sleeping with the other man whenever, but Ianto doesn’t care. Not when Jack is kissing him so thoroughly that his knees are threatening to drop them both to the floor. “Couch?” The edge of the bar is digging into his bruises and becoming harder to ignore.

Jack doesn’t stop kissing him, steering them backwards and still entwined towards the couch, tugging Ianto down onto his lap as he flops backwards onto it. His hands are warm and rough through Ianto’s shirt as they glide up his back, tugging the black cotton from the waist band of his jeans.

“Wait, I need my phone. Cheyenne is supposed to call at some point for a ride.” It’s over on the bar of course, which means Ianto has to make himself climb off of Jack to get it. The older man is sprawled out on the couch, lips swollen and fly straining as he watches Ianto with a half smile on his face.

“She’s all but ordered me into a repeat performance you know.” This time Ianto does not force back the ridiculously wide grin at the thought. There’s no one here to impress, just Jack who has literally seen him at his absolute worst and is still here. “Wow, guess I don’t really have to work up to asking if you’re up for it, huh?”

“I will not lie, that may have been one of the best sentences of my life.” Ianto sets his phone on the side table and lets Jack pull him between Jack’s sprawled knees by his belt loops, rubbing his jaw along the strip of skin where Ianto’s jeans are riding down. Shivers as Jack’s teeth graze the edge of the bruise across his hip. The hem of his shirt is bunched up over Jack’s hands somewhere just south of his arms and Ianto strips it over his head, dropping it on the floor behind himself.

The thick hair twisted between Ianto’s fingers is a perfect hand hold as Jack nibbles his way up to sink his teeth lightly into the muscle of Ianto’s chest, tongue curling slick around his nipple to flick lightening quick against it before moving over to the other side. The button on his jeans slips free with a tug of Jack’s busy fingers, the zipper on the fly being forced down by the extra pressure of Jack sliding his hand inside.

“That bruise came up worse than I thought it would.” Jack looks far too serious for someone with a cock close enough to his lips that Ianto can feel the air from his words puff across the swollen tip. “Do you think Owen needs to take a look at it?” A groan slips out of Ianto’s throat as Jack punctuates his question with a long firm swipe of his tongue.

“I thought we’d agreed not to talk about Owen when you’re sucking my dick? I _swear_ if I’m trying to get sucked off, then I can’t be hurt that damn badly.” Which Jack obviously knows because he looks too damn pleased with himself, eyes sparking with amusement and Ianto’s cock just resting on the flat of his tongue. “You’re not funny.” Ianto sinks his teeth into his bottom lip as Jack sucks him in deep and pulls back entirely too soon with a lewd slurp that leaves both his cock and the inner edge of Jack’s mouth slick and glistening with spit.

“Maybe I just like that scowl on your face when you can’t decide if insulting me is more important than getting your dick wet.”

“That sounds like a s-self esteem issue.” A stutter slips out as Jack slides off the couch onto his knees, working his way back down Ianto’s length with short bobbing movements. “Maybe we need a s-shrink instead of a linguist.”

“I had a shrink at the hub once.” Little flicks of his tongue are interspersed with his words as Jack pulls off him to speak. “And then I had her at her office, her car, and a hotel. I don’t want a shrink, I want an archivist and a linguist, preferably in a messy begging pile in the middle of your bed.” Jack swallows him to the root, dragging the edge of his teeth just hard enough on the pull off to have Ianto digging his hands tightly in Jack’s hair. “But speaking of linguists, your phone is ringing.”

“No, that’s my ears, keep going.”

“No, that’s your phone and one of us is going to answer it.” He means it too, he’s done it to Ianto before and then it becomes a game of keeping his phone and his body out of Jack’s hands that he doesn‘t find quite as funny as Jack does. Mostly because he has a tendency to lose.

“Ianto Jones.” He barely hops back in time to keep Jack’s mouth off his cock, trying to pull his jeans back up over his hips with one hand. He’s trying to give Jack his sternest most serious ‘don’t touch me’ face which is obviously a complete and utter failure since the captain never hesitates in his silent stalking of Ianto.

“So, I’m mostly done packing, my dogs have a priority vet visit in four hours, and I paid a ridiculous surcharge to get every leg of my flight upgraded from business to first class.” Jack is mimicking every one of his moves, circling wide and trying to back him into the couch.

“Jack!” He covers the phone with his hand and hisses. “ _Stop_ it!”

“Oh, is Jack there? I thought you two had made up, what’s he doing that’s bugging you now?” He’s got the bar between them now, but he’s the one boxed in on the kitchen side, Jack smirking and prowling the far edge of the bar. This shouldn’t be so much fun, not when he’s trying to fasten his fly _and_ try to come up with some kind of smooth lead in to asking if she wants to sleep with him and Jack tonight. It might actually be the most awkward question he’s ever tried to ask and Ianto can’t keep himself from grinning, even as he jabs a finger warningly at Jack, trying to gesture him back to the couch.

“He’s not bugging me so much as stalking me around the bloody flat.” A bit more than he actually planned on saying, but probably better than anything he could have said on purpose.

“Like, I-should-be-calling-999 stalking you, or gonna-tap-that-ass stalking you?”

“Wait, gonna _what_?” He pauses to close to the left side of the bar to gape incredulously at the phone and kicks himself as Jack laughs and whips himself around the bar at full speed. “Son of a bitch!” The fall is some kind of controlled drop that leaves Jack sitting on his hips, rocking back against the zipper Ianto just got up and the still hard flesh under it. “The uh, the second one.” She’s laughing in his ear until Jack plants his palm flat in the middle of Ianto’s chest and snatches the phone out of his hand.

“Cheyenne, it’s Jack.”

“Oh you unbelievable bastard, give me that phone!” He can’t get up, not with Jack distributing his weight across Ianto’s hips and the center of his chest, but he can dig his knuckle as hard as he can into the side of Jack’s thigh.

“Stop that, Ianto Jones.” The back of his hand stings as Jack holds the phone with his shoulder and thumps Ianto with the back of his fingers. “I’m on your phone, hmm?” He can’t hear what she’s saying, but Jack laughs. “Well, I have my hopes up. I most certainly am an instigator, yes ma‘am.” Not knowing what she’s saying is driving him insane and Jack isn’t making it any easier to figure out. “Because I think you would look perfect sprawled out in Ianto’s bed with your knees around his neck and my cock in your mouth but if you need a flimsy justification, even though you‘ve never struck me as that kind of woman, it‘s his birthday tomorrow. Twenty-four.”

“Oh my god.” Ianto isn’t sure if he wants to die of mortification or come in his pants like he’s fourteen, but Jack, the son of a bitch, never even blinks. “Oh fucking Christ, you _didn’t_ just say that. Jack! Give me the fucking phone this isn’t funny any more!”

“He can be there in ten minutes.” Jack hangs up the phone and leans forward, tapping Ianto on the tip of the nose with it. “See, all settled. I’m a professional Jones. _Always_ leave it to the professionals.”

“Because I’ve always wanted to be so easy I’m a professional at arranging a threesome.” Jack ignores his rolled eyes and tweaks his nipple.

“Deep inside, you meant that from a place of utter sincerity. I can see it in those fantastic blue eyes. Now can you see the seriousness in mine when I say she’s just as into this as she was the other night and you’re going to keep her waiting if you don’t get up?”

“You’re still sitting on me.”

“Trivial detail.” It’s completely not fair that Jack can say that with a perfectly straight face, move away from where he’s been pinning Ianto to the kitchen floor and dry humping him for so long he forgot to stop, and somehow still make himself seem cool doing it. “I’ll finish getting the cameras down while you’re gone.”

***

She’s under the awning in either a very long sweater or a very short dress that’s bright white and looks super soft, two doormen waiting with her.

“Hi.” She sprints from the safety of the awning to the open passenger door at a breakneck speed on super thin heels, slinging her huge purse in the backseat on top of the canvas bag that’s just been deposited there by one of the uniformed staff. “Pop the trunk?”

“I thought you only had three huge bags?” There are at least five being loaded into his trunk.

“Yeah, that was a filthy filthy lie. I had suitcase shame. Thanks guys.” She slips two folded bills out of her purse and tips the guys closing her door behind her. “I got dressed before I called, thinking I might be able to get you to go out with me, but I hear there might be a better offer on the table for tonight?” Ianto pulls the rental out into traffic and lets himself be a little smug that the soft tiny dress and sky high heels were originally all for him. “Did you start without me?”

“A little.” She reaches across the console and runs the back of her nails down the side of his neck.

“You’ll have to catch me up then.”

Ianto doesn’t turn on the emergency lights, but only because he can’t think of a good reason for the car he’s driving to have them in the first place.

***

Cheyenne is pressed against the wall next to his door, arms stretched over her head and pinned there by his grip around her wrists as he kisses her.

“Wow, you didn’t even make it inside.” Ianto opens his eyes and Jack is leaning against the open door, a glass in his hand. “This bodes well. Take this please.” Jack slides between them somehow leaving his drink in Ianto’s hand and stepping back with Cheyenne up in his arms, her legs wrapped around his waist as she giggles. “Drink that, it’s good.” It is good, actually, and strong. The alcohol burns it’s way down as Ianto follows Jack back into the flat and shuts the door behind himself.

“Wow, you are just as massive as you look, aren’t you?” Cheyenne has her hands wrapped around Jack’s upper arm, tracing the cut of his bicep and the hem of his sleeve. Ianto isn’t sure if massive is the word to use really, but Jack is definitely large enough to make Chy look tiny swept up in his arms like that.

“Nah, you’re just smaller when you’re not annoyed at me.” This is entirely too much banter when fluffy white sweater dresses should be inside out on his leather couch and braces should be coiled up on the floor waiting to trip the first one up on their feet.

“Well, if the two of you need me, I will be in my room.” The last of the drink burns it’s way down his throat as Ianto up ends the glass and settles it on the bar. “You know, where the bed is?”

“Is there really anything better than a man with a plan?” Ianto ignores Jack and his musings, pausing by his bed to kick off his trainers and strip his shirt back over his head.

“Not much.” There’s a small click of her electric blue heels settling onto the floor and something white goes flying past Ianto’s head. It’s not a fluffy sweater dress, but turning around to watch Cheyenne fussily arranging Jack’s suspenders back over his bare chest makes up for the disappointment. “Okay, _that’s_ hot.”

She’s correct; Jack looks fantastic just standing there with his hands in his pockets, the button on his fly gaping open just enough to show the smallest hint of hair. It’s hotter though when she wraps her hands around his suspenders and uses them as handles to tug Jack into the bedroom and stop him directly next to Ianto. It’s hardly a subtle clue.

There’s a tragic shortage of mirrors in his room, something Ianto has never thought about until now when he’s all but climbing Jack like a tree and trying to watch Cheyenne watching them. She makes a little squeal as Jack reaches down and grabs the back of Ianto’s thighs, taking him off his feet and tumbling both of them over onto the bed next to her. She close enough that Ianto doesn’t have to reach for her, just slide his hand off the back of Jack’s neck to land on the place high on her thigh where the hem of her dress has ridden up and further up to where there’s nothing under his fingers but smooth skin.

“No knickers?” That’s enough to draw Jack’s attention away from where he’s nibbling on Ianto’s ear. “Was that for the club too?” Her shoes hit the floor with a thump as Cheyenne flops backwards onto the mattress next to them, her hair brushing his face when Ianto tilts his head towards her.

“No, that was definitely a subtraction for the occasion.” Over him Jack shifts up onto his knees and slides the red suspenders down his shoulders, squirming out of his trousers with his eyes locked on where Ianto’s hand disappears under the white wool.

“Dressing for the occasion is a highly under appreciated skill.” Her mouth parts on a sigh, falling open as easily as her legs and begging to be kissed. It’s almost frantic and skirting the fantastically filthy edge of sloppy, her tongue tracing his teeth while Jack shucks him out of his jeans.

The rain is heavier than it’s been all day, a steady violent drumming against his window under the soft wet sounds of lips, tongues, and skin. Jack knocks his legs into a wide sprawl, tossing Ianto’s knee up over his shoulder, fingers digging lightly into the meat of the pale thigh as he takes Ianto deep in his mouth, swallowing around him hard enough that the boy smacks the mattress with a groan that turns into a whimper when Jack slides away from him.  
Under them the bed shifts as Jack moves, climbing across their bodies and tugging Cheyenne out of Ianto’s arms and into his own. Jack’s body blankets hers, the lush still covered curves tucked under yards of pale gold skin as they kiss. The wet grey light from the window paints their skin with watery shadows and Jack seems to be the only one who actually knows where everyone’s elbows and knees are as Ianto slides closer to them, trying to help Cheyenne slip out of her dress without moving away from the man over her. It should be awkward, maybe a bit frustrating when the dress gets stuck over her head, trapping her arms and Jack’s hands but it’s just kind of fun, trying to find the tiny pearl buttons up the back to free her as she laughs. Her hair crackles with static, floating around her face as the last button slips free and Ianto whips the twisted fabric away, tossing it over the side of the bed to the floor.

“My hero.” Her legs are still twisted around Jack’s hips as she arches and rubs teasingly slow against him but her arms wrap around Ianto’s neck, soft swollen lips catching his. The soft brown fall of Jack’s hair tickles the underside of his chin as the other man maps his way down Cheyenne’s throat, finding the spot at the base of her throat that makes her sigh and shiver and working it like he’s always known it was there. Then again Ianto knows it’s possible that Jack has known about that sweet spot exactly as long as Ianto has. The captain is nothing if not observant and the two of them have been anything but shy about fucking all over the flat despite knowing they were being watched. The thought that Jack is using things he saw Ianto do to work the woman between them into a panting squirming mess has his cock bouncing, jerking where it’s trapped between his stomach and Jack’s side where he’s pressed against them. Her breath catches in a high-pitched hitching moan against his mouth, her fingers twisting deep enough in his hair to wrench a whine from the back of his throat. It’s not just the tiny points of pleasure/pain running from his scalp across every inch of his skin, but the familiar half jerk of Jack’s hips as he slides inside and pauses to just _feel_ it are made almost unfamiliar by not being on the other end of the motion.

The sound Jack makes as Ianto sides his hand between their two bodies, tracing the slick hot spot where his lovers are joined is a choked off laugh.

“If you‘ve decided it‘s not a spectator sport there‘s lube in my pocket.”

“Haha.” The noises they both make as he slaps Jack on the ass sliding off the bed and the movement goes through both of them demands further exploration later. For now there’s a small bottle tucked in Jack’s discarded trousers pocket, presumptuous thing that he is, and it’s all but calling Ianto’s name.

Jack has tumbled the two of them over onto their sides by the time Ianto turns back to the bed, working his way in and out of Cheyenne with the kind of long hard strokes that Ianto knows by experience he can keep up for what seems like forever.

“You two look…fantastic.” Ianto’s voice is horse, his mouth dry as he watches Jack catch her under the knee, spreading her wider.

“We’d look better if you were over here with us.”

It’s not really the kind of invitation he can imagine anyone refusing. Not while Jack makes those deep rumbling noises deep in his chest when Ianto slides onto the bed behind them, sinking his teeth into the tender place at the nape of Jack’s neck. He skims his hands across the flexing play of muscles in Jack’s back, pausing to trace the dimples at the base of his spine that disappear and reappear with every thrust into the moaning woman watching every thing Ianto does over Jack’s shoulder with wide eyes. It’s the same intensely fascinated gaze she had on him back in the safe house when Jack had him flipped over, working him open and it makes it easier to understand the urge to make a show out of it. Her eyes are locked on him as Ianto flips the cap open with his teeth, slicking up his hand where she can see him working it around his fingers to warm it.

Jack gasps, the sound muffled by her throat as Ianto winks at Cheyenne and rests the tips of his fingers just against the tight entrance to his body, letting Jack’s own thrusts into her work his body back onto the Welshman’s twisting hand. The muscular figure between them shudders but doesn’t falter in it’s rhythm. Chy, however, looks like she’s going to pull something trying to twist to see what he’s doing without breaking the rhythm of steady strokes.

“You’re going to knock your back out trying to twist like that.” Jack’s voice is far less steady than his movements, soft and shaky in a way it only goes in bed.

“She’s pretty flexible. Here, this is what I’m doing.” Jack moans as Ianto slides his fingers free, grabbing the hand clutching the swell of muscle at the top of the older man’s ass with lube sticky hands and drizzling more over both their fingers before sliding them back down the curve of Jack’s buttocks to the loosened ring of muscle. Her nails are short and smooth as Ianto cradles her hand in his and slides one of her long thin fingers inside Jack along with two of his, trimmed and filed at the hospital to match the ones broken off at the hub.

“Oh fuck.” The soft whisper from her is almost drowned out by the raw sound Jack makes as Ianto guides the pad of her finger to the soft swell of Jack’s prostate. He curls their fingers together to show her how to stroke it until the man sandwiched between them stills, shuddering in the curve of their arms as he’s both stretched and stroked. “How are you doing Jack?”

“Awesome.” There’s a shade too much shaky need in his muffled voice to be flippant as Jack nibbles the woman’s throat. “I’m great, really, would you just fuck me please!”

“I think he’s talking to you Darlin.” Their hands are still slick from the extra lube as Ianto wraps their twined fingers around his cock to slick it up, fighting back the urge to thrust into them as Cheyenne grips him just right and slides her wet thumb through the precome leaking from him. “Ready?” Her voice is breathy as she guides him to the slick rim of Jack’s hole, brushing the head of his cock teasingly against it until Ianto presses his face hard into the curve of Jack’s shoulder, gasping for breath as Jack twists between them, trying to buck back onto him.

“Don’t tease Chy!” Most likely it’s not his words, but something Jack is doing that Ianto can’t see that stops her hand with a gasped shudder, freezing the sweet slick glide of his flesh against Jack’s but Ianto doesn’t care. Not when he’s aligned just right to snap his hips forward and sink almost half way into the familiar tight heat of the captain’s body. “Oh yeah.”

There are a few false starts to working out a rhythm between three people. In the end they settle into a slow hard series of strokes that move back and forth between them, pulling them slowly but surely towards their goal. Their voices are hushed under the steady pounding of water on the roof above their heads, tangled together in a soft wave of begging and coaxing. Everyone’s skin is slick with sweat as they slide together, bending and twisting to bring their mouths together, teeth sinking into whatever flesh is closest. Perspiration is beaded on his forehead, threatening to drip into Ianto’s eyes as he grits his teeth and tries to think about reorganizing the archives and not about Cheyenne who’s begging and whining like she’s right on the edge, fighting to keep his movements steady and not throw off the rhythm that’s almost got her there but the noises she’s making keep driving his hips to snap harder. Jack is panting and gasping for it, every muscle tense to the point of quivering, and it’s obvious that every one of them is holding back, trying to ride that shining edge of _almost_ as long as they can, determined not to be the one who tips them all over by going first.

Which lasts exactly as long as it takes for Ianto to pull back his hand and slap it against the round curve of Cheyenne’s ass with a sharp crack. She comes with a shriek and her short nails digging into his arm, pulling Jack along with a bellow and a rippling shudder that has Ianto seeing flashes of light behind his tightly clenched eyes as Jack milks him dry.

“Gentlemen,” He’s not sure how long they’ve been lying there, wrapped around each other and gasping for air, but it’s been long enough that the sound of her tired voice startles Ianto from a light doze. “Hell of a job. A pluses all the way around.” They should start moving towards the bathroom because this is going to be an even worse mess than at the safe house, but no one is so much as twitching. “Sorry we didn’t fit your obviously well thought out oral fiesta into it Jack.”

“I’m not worried.” Jack sounds wide awake, but that’s because he always does. At least this time he’s not squirming his way off the bed. “It’s not quite seven yet.” He rolls onto his bad, tucking Ianto against him and Cheyenne under the other arm. “Night’s still young kids.”  
***


	16. Chapter 16

The bed is empty when Ianto wakes up which is only half a surprise since Jack let himself out sometime after one, leaving Ianto and Cheyenne wrung out and exhausted in the middle of the bed. There’s music that’s definitely not his playing from the living room which answers the question of where Cheyenne is. His pajamas are on the floor by the bed, but someone grabbed them at some point last night and there’s dried come on the leg.

“Oh. Gross.” They fly across the room and miss the hamper completely when they un-wad in midair, landing on the floor in a crumpled heap that is at least stain side down. Something smells delicious in the kitchen, good enough that Ianto doesn’t bother looking for his other pair of black bottoms. Instead he reaches in his top drawer and shimmies into the pair of Batman boxers he never wears to work because that will be the day he ends up at some point in nothing but them.

“I made birthday breakfast!” Cheyenne is next to the stove, hair falling out of the bun it’s pinned up in as she flips a pancake out of the pan and onto a teetering stack of them. “Also, Jack swung by for like, thirty seconds half an hour ago to bring you the gift of your own car. Apparently it’s out of the shop and back in your parking spot. So, if Jack hadn’t told on you yesterday were you even going to mention today is your birthday?”

“Probably not, honestly. I never really bother with my birthday except for having dinner at my sister’s the day after.”

“Well then I won’t take it personally that you spoiled potential present fun. Food should be done in about five minutes and just so you know, I’m not sure if it’s drool or come, but you have something on your face.” She touches the corner of her own mouth. “Just there.”

“Ew. Awesome.” Her laughing words follows him into the bathroom.

“Well, it definitely wasn’t drool I washed out of my hair this morning, so you’re one up on me!”

***

It’s not a bad day, all in all. Mostly they spend it camped out on the couch playing video games and Cheyenne obviously wasn’t exaggerating how much she plays because she’s quite frankly kicking his ass up and down the stage in Mortal Kombat.

Ianto forgives her though since she’s so awful at Halo that it was easier to shoot her avatar in the head at the beginning of each level and do it alone.

“Okay, I think that’s enough birthday shaming for you.” He winces as she shatters his frozen skull on the screen. “I think you should let me take you out for dinner and drinks to celebrate.”

“Why would I want to celebrate the ridiculous pixilated ass-kicking I’ve been taking all day when we could stay in, finish the weed that has to be _gone_ by tomorrow and have fantastic good-bye sex?” He’s giving her his most charming grin and even though the corner of Cheyenne’s mouth is threatening to turn upwards, she’s obviously not having any of it.

“Or…we can smoke now, get dressed, go out, come back and then have more weed and good-bye sex. I seriously have, like, five or six excuses to go out and celebrate tonight. It’s your birthday, I got hired, you’re off probation, I’m glad I met you…do I need to keep going?”

“Nah.” Leaving it at ‘I’m glad I met you’ is pretty good actually.

“Good. So then, you and me and a night out, preferably a late one since I have a thirteen hour flight first thing in the morning I’d love to sleep through.”

***

Plans get slightly derailed by a quickie on the couch, but Ianto refuses to take the blame for starting it when Cheyenne is the one who came strolling out of his room in cut offs so short he can see the edges of her pockets and his black vest with the off black pinstripes over a sparkly black bra, the edges of which just barely peek over the top hem. The rain of yesterday left behind a shocking muggy heat today that’s only now starting to burn off and frankly Ianto’s glad for a reason to slip under the lukewarm fall of water one last time even though it’s a quarter to nine by the time they meander out of the flat.

They’ve gotten a head start on the party so they’re walking into the city center, her arm draped around his waist and fingers tangled in his belt loops, his fingers tucked into her back pocket as they snicker at things that probably aren’t that funny and put entirely too much thought into pizza from the greasy little shop down by the water front versus fish and chips from the first place they walk by. Fish wins by convenience and they sit shoulder to shoulder on top of a picnic table eating hot fried food with their fingers. Someone has left a copy of The Indie’s entertainment section on the table and there’s live music at eight different clubs, but Cheyenne has her vote firmly cast for rock, the louder the better, so Ianto borrows her Ipod, pulls up google maps, and points them off towards the Buffalo Bar.

They’ve been in the dark crowded space for almost an hour and Ianto is well on his way to shit faced, Cheyenne keeping up with him shot for shot when his phone rings.

“Jones here!” He’s shouting over the pounding bass lines drums, shouldering his way to the semi-quiet space near the back bathrooms.

“Happy Birthday luv.” Gwen’s yelling over the sound of the club on his end. “I was calling to see if you wanted to grab a birthday round, but it sounds like you’re already on it.”

“Yeah, Chy and I are at a show at the Buffalo!” The singer is screaming and snarling into the mic and the ringing in the air is drowning out Gwen’s end of the conversation. “Gwen, Gwen! I can’t hear you. I’ll talk to you later!” Cheyenne is still in the middle of the dancing press of bodies when Ianto makes his way back to her, wiggling his phone in response to her raised eyebrow. “It was Gwen from work calling to see if I wanted to go out for drinks. She’ll probably show up soon thinking she’s going to surprise me.”

It actually takes a little less than half and hour and Ianto is pleasantly surprised to see that Tosh is in tow when he spots them by the stairs up to the second floor. They squeeze onto a short couch that’s almost not big enough for them, even though Cheyenne is lounged comfortably in his lap. Gwen disappears, popping back up at their side with her hands dangerously full of shot glasses, beers tucked into the crook of her elbows. They raise their shots to Gwen’s toast to him and Ianto feels himself take that easy step from tipsy to drunk.

***

Ianto doesn’t have a hangover when he rolls over to slam his palm down on his alarm clock, which he thinks might be a minor miracle since he’s not quite sure he remembers much past the second round with Tosh and Gwen.

“Chy, wake up.” Okay, he’s not _sick_ but maybe Ianto is a _little_ hungover as every inch of his body informs him with one hundred percent certainty that gravity has tripled since he fell into bed sometime around three. It takes him a moment of deep concentration but Ianto forces his eyes open and the sunlight isn’t as bad as he’d feared but the neon red numbers on his alarm clock are obnoxious. “Come on, it’s eight-thirty and you said you wanted to be at the airport by ten.”

“My kingdom for my apparition license!” The spill of hair across his pillow is the only thing that moves, fluffing up with the force of her whined shout.

“Well, Hogwarts eludes us all. Come on. Up!” Even his hair complains when he sits up, scrubbing his hands over his face and back across his scalp, a clamor that is only drowned out by the squeak Cheyenne lets out as he slaps her across the round swell of her ass. Ianto knows the cure for this sluggish sore kind of hangover and getting moving is an important part of it. “The first movement is the hardest one.”

“No, fuck my job, I’m just going to stay here slightly hung-over with you forever!” He knows she doesn’t mean it, she’s actually sliding out of the bed and onto the floor with a thump as she says it, but his heart still gives a weird little half skip when she says it. His head suggests bending over long enough to find his clothes is a bad idea, so Ianto fumbles his shades off the top of his lampshade and slides them on before making his way into the much brighter living room in nothing else.

“Come on Drama Queen, I’ve got Advil, children’s jelly vitamins, and cold water out here.” He’s also making the coffee without bothering to open his eyes because if this past month has made him proficient at anything it’s navigating the pills, coffee, water routine in any state from dazed to blind drunk.

“This is for you.” She’s got her middle finger high in the air as she staggers around the entertainment center to get to the bathroom. “Oh god, I might _actually_ be getting to old for this shit.” The door shuts with a click that’s about two and a half times louder than it needs to be and Ianto pounds a tall glass of water in one breath, chewing two grape shaped purple vitamins before taking two Advil with slow sips of the second glass. In the bathroom the shower comes on.

“Come take your Advil and drink your water first!”

“Oh no, are you one of those people who becomes neurotically in control of themselves when they’re hung-over to make up for the complete lack of it the night before? Because I’m one of those who can’t give a fuck less and that _totally_ makes my skin crawl.” She’s snagged a towel from the bathroom and she hasn’t made so much as a single attempt to push her hair out of her face.

“That is actually a completely perfect definition of my reaction to having a hangover. Drink this then chew these.”

“Ew, I don’t like purple. Got any green or yellow ones?” Ianto rolls his eyes but tips them back into the bottle and picking out two little pineapple ones. The water is heating up in the bathroom and steam is starting to roll out as she washes her Advil down with careful sips.

“Coffee will be done by the time you get out.”

Coffee is done and she’s still in the shower fifteen minutes later when his phone rings from the bedside table.

“Jones.” His head is clearing already as he sips at the travel mug in his hand

“You asked me to call you if you hadn’t texted by a quarter of.” Jack sounds way too cheerful, cheerful in a way that makes Ianto start to feel deeply ashamed of himself for no good reason.

“I texted you?” He can’t choke down the faint whimper under his words.

“Oh yes you did, many times.” Jack must be grinning so big his freakin face hurts because Ianto can _hear_ it, he knows he can. Ianto thumbs the speaker phone on and fumbles past his outgoing texts in his haste. There are twenty in the out box where last night there had been only four. Seven of them are photos, and most alarmingly three seem to be video.

“Oh _no_.”

“Oh, have you found your outbox? I can’t decide if the first photo or the second to last video is my favorite.”

“Oh holy mother of god, when did I become such a whore?” He navigates quickly away from the picture of himself and Cheyenne in front of the mirror on his closet door and just stares slack jawed at the phone. “I obviously need one of those drunk text apps.”

“I would be more disappointed by that than I can say. As much as I would love to keep hearing that sexy edge of sex and shame in your voice, and really, I would, I’ve got work to do. If you get in by eight tomorrow we’ll get you back in all the systems before start of day and you can take my update from Archie at nine-thirty.”

“Don’t suppose I can convince you to not keep the texts?”

“Oh no, not a chance. These are _mine_ now. Just wait until you watch the videos.” Jack hangs up without another word leaving Ianto to stare at the outbox alone. He’s not sure what to do about the fact that being genuinely ashamed of himself for actually drunk texting porn to his boss has absolutely no effect on his cock being hard enough to throb distractingly, so Ianto just slides into the first pair of boxers he finds on the floor and shoves the phone into Cheyenne’s hands as he squeezes past her into the bathroom.

“You should look at this.”

***

“Okay, I swear I’m not normally this easy.” Her cheeks are bright pink as she shoves the phone back into his hands seconds after Ianto steps out of the bathroom in a towel. “That said, I forwarded all of it to my email account which probably isn’t helping my case for not being epicly slutty.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.” The email thing was a pretty good idea though and Ianto mails everything to himself before clearing his phone as fast as he can. For a moment they’re both so awkward that it can’t be anything but a bit funny and he might laugh first, but she snorts when she joins in and her lips are still curved up into a smile when she wraps her arms around his neck and presses her mouth to his softly.

“It’s been a pleasure to meet you Ianto Jones, who is definitely not a smuggler but might still be a criminal mastermind.” She doesn’t seem concerned about his wet body pressed against her clothes so he gathers her tighter to him and give her one good squeeze before settling her back on her feet.

“Thank you for being fantastic above beyond the call of duty. I’ve got to get dressed; make sure you’ve got everything.”

***

Saying good-bye is easier and harder than Ianto thought it would be. He helps her carry her bags to the baggage check, she kisses him wet and deep one last time at the security check and disappears into the first class lounge with a wink and a blown kiss that leaves him feeling a bit like he got punched in the chest. He wanders back to his car slowly and is just sitting behind the wheel breathing deeply when his text ring tone begins playing.

 _::missing you already Wales::_

The smile the text pulls out of him is surprisingly painless and his thumbs fly over the keypad.

 _::Fly safe America. Text me when you land::_

Ianto slides his shades back down over his eyes and pulls the car out of the car park and out onto the road, headed for the other side of town. He really needs a haircut before he goes back to work tomorrow and if he shows up at Rhiannon’s like this she’ll insist on doing it herself.

***

Ianto’s already mostly awake by the time the alarm goes off at half past six the next morning, the faint stinging edge of anticipation under his skin as he makes the bed quickly and lays out his clothes. His morning routine feels surprisingly normal despite not having done it in weeks and by half past he’s on his way out the door, tie straight, shoes polished, and holster lying flat and empty against his side. The owner of his usual bakery spends the entire time he’s waiting for his order fussing over him. He’s too thin, he’s not allowed to stop coming around like that because he’s had her worried and when is he going to let her set him up with her daughter the nurse? She stuffs an extra chocolate muffin in his bag and won’t let him pay for it, so Ianto crams the cost in a donation box next to the register and eats it on the ride over.

Which apparently was karma smiling down on him because Owen is waiting in the tourist office next to his desk when Ianto tries the door at ten of eight, taking the bakery bag from his hands and promptly shoving the muffin Ianto bought for himself into his big fat mouth.

“Breakfast? Good man Jones. I’ll have to warm up the metal bits just for you.”

The Hub is still a disaster and nothing in him is surprised that the team’s attempt at tidying up has mostly just lead to messily sorted stacks and piles of trash and paperwork but the kitchen is a lovely surprise. Every surface is clean and there’s a note stuck on the coffee machine that proclaims in Gwen’s handwriting and bright pink ink that no one has touched the buttons, not even to dust.

“That’s right, she’s pristine and untouched, her purity kept intact for you. You may reward me by turning the bloody thing on now.” There are crumbs on Owen’s tee-shirt as he leans against the door. “Bring me some and we’ll get your physical out of the way so Jack can give you your gun back.”

***

Even Gwen is early today so Jack pulls them all into the conference room so Ianto can get caught up on any immediate issues as far as information requests and inventory. Ianto takes his normal seat at the end of the table, turns on his freshly returned laptop and only sees the undisguised glee on Owen’s face milliseconds before his screen fills with a wide screen compilation of the footage from the security cameras that were in his flat, Cheyenne shrieking his name as loud as his speakers can go.

It’s a slideshow of rapidly changing shots from every time he had her in his flat, floating below a password box and above a wobbling glitter graphic announcing that ‘Two weeks in Cheyenne’ is a Torchwood Three production. Ianto slams the laptop shut so hard he’s worried he might have damaged the screen, but the sound lags behind, and over the rushing of blood in his ears and Owen laughing like he’s going to die, Ianto can still hear Cheyenne coming before it cuts off in the middle of his name.

“I think it may be my best production yet!” Owen has actually slid onto the floor still howling like a hyena and Ianto is determined to ignore the fact that he knows he’s bright red as he slumps down in his chair just enough to kick Owen none too gently in the leg.

“You are a twat and my vengeance will be epic.”

“Children! We’re _all_ glad Ianto is back but if we maybe turn the password lock off the house porn so we can get our back stock ordered that would be great.” Jack’s face isn’t quite straight and Myfanwy has settled into a looming hunker outside of the conference room, one huge eye fixed on him.

“Here Ianto.” Gwen fishes her tablet out of her purse, rapping Owen sharply on the top of his head as she passes it over. “Glad to have you back.”

“Good to be back.” He almost can’t believe he means it as much as he does. “So, what did I miss?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it. My last writing act of the year is closing out this story, which I think is kind of nice. Super thanks to my beta czarinakitty who is fantastic! This has been a lot of awesome fun to write and if I haven't told you personally in response to a comment how much I've appreciated it, I'd like to thank everyone now for sticking with me for this. I've been amazed at the fantastic response I've gotten both at Dreamwidth and AO3. It's been fantastic and a bit overwhelming and I'm looking forward to doing it again in the new year with the sequel!(which has no name yet) Enjoy the last of your year, I'll see you again in 2012.


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